D&D 5E Where are the options?

[Ganymede81]

There are a whole butt-ton of options in the background sections. I think there are well over 100 personality traits, bonds, ideals, and flaws you can choose from, which represent thousands of possible combinations.

If that's not enough, the rules allow you to make up your own traits, bonds, ideals, and flaws, which makes the options for customization endless.

 

[ChrisCarlson]

I will chime in with some of the others asking what it is you are looking for. What "options" are missing that would otherwise make you feel like you are playing the game you want?

Maybe it doesn't look like it at first glance, but to me 5e has more breadth of options in realizing a character concept that any edition of D&D before it (within the same ~ 2 years of release). What are you having trouble with? Maybe we can help.

 

[aco175]

I wanted to have more official modules. I get the $50 mega-modules only coming out twice each year and now that it has been a couple years I have a few options to play. I always liked the Dungeon Magazine for short adventures that I could plug in my world. I am happy with DMsGuild and hope the site gets better with sort and filtering things. I also hope that other 3pp start filling that gap with more professional modules than DMsG.

More options are good as well. I got into the 3e days when the character was first. Pathfinder is an option, but my group will always be D&D. Some more ideas on backgrounds would help define your character along with more fluff like wizard schools and guilds. Things that allow characters to be more ingrained in the world.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

More options are good as well. I got into the 3e days when the character was first. Pathfinder is an option, but my group will always be D&D. Some more ideas on backgrounds would help define your character along with more fluff like wizard schools and guilds. Things that allow characters to be more ingrained in the world.

Thing is, that sort of thing is rather specific to the world that the characters are in. The Forgotten Realms is the default, but thankfully they aren't making much stuff that is FR-specific.

Also, a lot of that fluff is already out there from previous editions in various forms. Groups are also told how they can come up with new backgrounds if the ones in the PHB don't suit a character.

 

[CapnZapp]

I'm starting to wonder: Are they ever planning on supporting this ruleset in the way I would expect them to? Or did they leave behind players like me when they went to 5e?

Well, yes and no.

Yes, if all you want out of the system is official crunchy bits like "book of fighter feats 2" this or "spell compendium 3" that.

No, if you're willing to give the new approach a try. Crunch will be handed out in small dollops: seldom in its own module, often in conjunction and interwoven with so called "story".

Instead of separate splatbooks, campaign modules, and adventures you get things like Princes of the Apocalypse (arguably 20% splatbook, 10% campaign module and 70% adventure) and Sword Coast Adventurer Guide (arguably 20% splatbook, 80% campaign overview).

Sometimes the crunch you do get is thematic with the overall material (such as info on underdark races in Out of the Abyss), sometimes less so (some Elemental Evil spells, some SCAG character options).

The idea is to get all customers to find something in everything, while avoiding products that only interest a segment of the customer base.

(Not that you won't find more specialized 5th Ed stuff, but that you will have to turn to the DMs Guild for that)

 

[Raith5]

I'm starting to wonder: Are they ever planning on supporting this ruleset in the way I would expect them to? Or did they leave behind players like me when they went to 5e?

I guess the DM's guild is the answer to this question. But I agree. I would like to see more options with regards to backgrounds and some subclasses for some of the classes. I would also like to see more dramatic additions with regards to more complex martial characters. Probably more monsters are required as well. I am not sure that I need more races or bloody spells.

For me the deeper thing is how WOTC is Shepherding content in 5e - it seems that it is scattered across the DMs Guild and the across the modules/adventure paths. Seems like a little bit of a mess to me. I really want to have official stuff in a book that can sit on the table.

 

[dave2008]

I want to state first that I'm not trolling in any way.

Really? You haven't responded to one response to your initial post.

 

[ZeshinX]

I've had this thought roll around in my brain cage for a while. It's been stated 5e was not going to be a splat-heavy edition of D&D (by WotC employees and others, some quoted in this very thread), and it sure hasn't been. There have been some scattered and random options as the OP mentioned, but nothing akin to the handbooks and Complete class books of old. I suspect there never will be (not from WotC anyway).

I'm finding the options are left up to imagination. 5e seems (from my perspective) to buck what I've viewed as a trend in current role-playing circles. Specifically, 'The Build'. I define 'The Build' as character creation done simply by the numbers, or at the very least where the numbers are the primary aspects a character is created by (and optimized), with the concept and actual character (or personality) a distant, if ever considered, second.

5e certainly can function in this way just fine for those that like it, but it's certainly not an ideal system for it (3.x/PF is far more suited for it if you're looking for close-to-D&D rules for Build characters).

5e, really, has gone back to a more "Concept First" approach. Your imagination is left to fill in the blanks of who your character is. That defines what you play instead of letting numbers tell you what you're playing.

Neither approach is wrong. Some people love one over the other or love another way of doing it altogether. They're all doing it right, since it's the way they enjoy it. I myself favor concept over stats, but that's mainly due to having started playing with a group that favored that approach, and luckily managed to find myself in groups that preferred it as well (though we do like the numbers to support our concepts).

I find myself looking over to my Pathfinder books and wishing 5e had as many options....but then I think about it and realize there isn't much in PF that I can't do, conceptually, in 5e.

 

[Jester David]

I want classes and monsters and spells and psionics and other interesting character options to play with. I at least want the rules I need to play Eberron properly. It seems like there would be more out by now unless there's like just Mike Mearls and one other guy working in an empty building on D&D.

I'm starting to wonder: Are they ever planning on supporting this ruleset in the way I would expect them to? Or did they leave behind players like me when they went to 5e?

I go into the issue in pretty heavy detail here.

But, summarizing much of that blog...
Splatbooks are tricky. You only really need one ever. One book can easily contain enough material for dozens of characters and three or four campaigns. If you do two or three splatbooks - even if they're a year apart - you're releasing pages and pages of content that will never be used. Because people can't consume it fast enough.
How many Pathfinder archetypes, 3e Prestige Classes, or 2e kits were potentially never used by a single player? How many classes were never really explored beyond level 4 or 5?
I went all in on 3e and PF and I have books I've only every glanced at.

And that many option wrecks hell on the balance of the game.

After a while, splatbooks become useful less for building characters and more just for reading. For the collectors and for theory crafters buidling characters for fun. And that's not what the game should be based on; there's lots of other activities you can do in the downtime between games.

 

[MrHotter]

I'm so glad that 5E is the way it is. I went Essentials only with my 4E game because I hate the power creep from endless new books being released that end up being 'mandatory' for character advancement.

I have some neighbors that play Pathfinder and I spent a day looking at making a character before I gave up. I prefer the KISS concept in table top gaming.

That being said, I tell my players that I want them to be able to make the character they want to play. If the existing classes and races are not working for them I'm willing to help them make some changes so that their character fits what they want to play. I don't need three advanced character guides to tell me that I can let someone's bard use INT as their casting ability or how to make a halfling subrace that has +WIS as their bonus.