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

[Undrave]

Anecdotally, my last session was 5 hours long, and was entirely social and exploration pillars. Not a single combat this session. Much of the exploration was exploring the sewers in Waterdeep. It included searching for clues of guild signs, not getting lost, mapping the sewers, finding secret passages, dealing with the stench of the sewer and other unsanitary conditions, recognizing and avoiding hazards, both traps and creatures, using light sources, and resource management (both in fear and what spells to prepare*)

Not gonna lie, part of me think it sounds really cool and fun, but another part of me feels like it would be super tedious and I'd get bored halfway through... so I'm probably not the judge of that pillar so I'll shut up now (also maybe my DM is just not that good at it...)

Also, Darkvision being on so many races obviate the light source issues...

 

[Parmandur]

I just explained why they're not even vaguely related. I mean, most games sell to people who haven't played them yet - they're actual quality as games has no influence on that purchase! They might have seen advertising, noticed it on the shelf because of the art or the name, read a blurb on the back...

Sales is very much its own thing.

You asserted that designing games and selling them are separate, but hardly demonstrated the point. Game design is about creating an experience for people to enjoy. Getting people to enjoy the experience is included in that process, by neccesity.

Ad populum is a fallacy when asserting universal, abstract truth by appeal to popular opinion ("2+2=5 because that's what people put in tests"). When the matter in question is what is popular or what will be successful in achieving popularity, that is not fallacious. Game design is Rhetoric, not Logic.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I’ve literally never in my life had to do any such thing, except when play a Star Wars RPG, and even then it was only because they wanted to play something the system just didn’t support, like some obscure Force Tradition with very specific iconic abilities.

They all sort of blend together, IMX, it's so typical, and I'd done so many intro games while my health held out (no, it's OK, I'm mostly recovered these days). But a few anecdotes stand out...

In DnD? Nah. Especially in 5e, I ask what sort of character they wanna play, and just help them make that character.

So, you never do that and get "how 'bout a wizard like in Harry Potter?" (Wasn't my table, but we never saw that new player again. It stuck out in my memory because of the contrast. The FLGS was very crowded and an employee was helping two 'new' players get started - an older, not as old as me, but not young, guy who'd played some D&D in high school, and less old, but still not terribly young, lady who uttered the doomed Harry Potter line. The guy, of course, proposed to start with a fighter, because that'd be easiest to get back into it - kept seeing him around for months.)

By then, of course, I'd gone to the hard policy of pregens only. Pick a pregen, don't even talk about how it might relate to a familiar archetype from genre, just explain it in the context of the game. Ironically, "Defender" &c were helpful, when it was Encounters and the pregens were laminated half-sheets.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Not gonna lie, part of me think it sounds really cool and fun, but another part of me feels like it would be super tedious and I'd get bored halfway through... so I'm probably not the judge of that pillar so I'll shut up now (also maybe my DM is just not that good at it...)

Also, Darkvision being on so many races obviate the light source issues...

the elf with dark vision doesn’t help the human or halfling in the dark tunnels

 

[Parmandur]

Not gonna lie, part of me think it sounds really cool and fun, but another part of me feels like it would be super tedious and I'd get bored halfway through... so I'm probably not the judge of that pillar so I'll shut up now (also maybe my DM is just not that good at it...)

Also, Darkvision being on so many races obviate the light source issues...

Mearls has mentioned that they have been taken aback by how little people use the exploration rules they wrote and put in the core books. Indeed, I would wager a 6E would tone down the exploration rules because they have been underutilized.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You asserted that designing games and selling them are separate, but hardly demonstrated the point.

People design games that are never offered for sale. People can acquire games for free. People buy games without any experience of how they'll play.

I don't see how much more demonstration of the obvious you need.

Ad populum is a fallacy when asserting universal, abstract truth by appeal to popular opinion

Or when asserting that the popularity of something proves it has a specific, theoretically desireable quality, when there are many other, much stronger explanations for it's popularity.

 

[Tony Vargas]

the elf with dark vision doesn’t help the human or halfling in the dark tunnels

Please, give generously to guide elves for the blind...

 

[Parmandur]

They all sort of blend together, IMX, it's so typical, and I'd done so many intro games while my health held out (no, it's OK, I'm mostly recovered these days). But a few anecdotes stand out...

So, you never do that and get "how 'bout a wizard like in Harry Potter?" (Wasn't my table, but we never saw that new player again. It stuck out in my memory because of the contrast. The FLGS was very crowded and an employee was helping two 'new' players get started - an older, not as old as me, but not young, guy who'd played some D&D in high school, and less old, but still not terribly young, lady who uttered the doomed Harry Potter line. The guy, of course, proposed to start with a fighter, because that'd be easiest to get back into it - kept seeing him around for months.)

By then, of course, I'd gone to the hard policy of pregens only. Pick a pregen, don't even talk about how it might relate to a familiar archetype from genre, just explain it in the context of the game. Ironically, "Defender" &c were helpful, when it was Encounters and the pregens were laminated half-sheets.

I have never really seen this, bit I only play with friends and family at home.

There was one guy, friend of a friend, who came to one session in college blazed out of his mind who wanted to be some combination of Billy Joel and Doctor Who, but that was a rather special incident of incoherence that no system could have helped.

 

[S'mon]

Would be nice if there was an ACTUAL exploration pillar in the game. Not just one guy rolling for Survival to not get lost and some spell caster obviating the challenge with some spells (like Goodberry feeding everybody).

I agree with the AngryGM, there's not really that much in the DnD exploration pillar. It barely exists. What Makes Exploration Exploration?

"Exploration pillar" = "exploring stuff" (dungeons, towns, forests) not "rolling Survival"
"Social pillar = "talking to people" (inc monsters) not "rolling Persuasion".

It's about the things you do in game, not rules-crunch.

 

[Undrave]

Mearls has mentioned that they have been taken aback by how little people use the exploration rules they wrote and put in the core books. Indeed, I would wager a 6E would tone down the exploration rules because they have been underutilized.

This article mention Mearls releasing revisions Travel and Exploration Rules

I'm not sure what the DMG says about it honestly. Might be a question of presentation? Or that the rules as presented don't offer much value for the time spent on them? Like I said, I'm not the best judge of this.