D&D (2024) Why aren't you using 5e 2024?

[Scribe]

does that apply to anything else (houses, cars, dinners, movies, …)?

No, I dont think it applies to RPGs either. Its not the budget thats the problem, its the incorrect, or in Wizards case lack of, vision.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This poll is really missing a "my group is just bored of D&D specifically" option.

That's the case for my main and secondary groups. Just no-one is really excited about it anymore, and 2024 didn't give us any reasons at all to be more excited. None of the new stuff is exciting. None of the changes are exciting. The art's cool but like, that doesn't sustain me the way it did when I was like, 13. I mean, it also dodged a bullet in that not much stuff is changed for distinctly the worse either (not zero but not much), but I was expecting a bit more.

And currently announced future plans for D&D seem... like, okay? There's no new settings, nothing cool being brought back in a cool way, no exciting-sounding (to me/us at least) adventures, etc.

And this is in environment where there are a lot of cool RPGs around, ones which do stuff which is more exciting to us. Maybe it's temporary. Maybe we'll come back to D&D in a couple of years. But I honestly doubt it unless WotC do some direction changes with D&D's products. It's like it's 1994 but there's no Planescape or similarly "OMG amazing" stuff to draw us back, and with Perkins in charge of creative direction for D&D, it seems unlikely there will be in the near future, just mediocre nostalgia-bait. Maybe I'm missing the latest updates though.

We are playing RPGs and pretty regularly though - mostly Mothership at the moment, which is very excellent.

 

[CleverNickName]

My vote would have been simply, "because I'm happy with my current 5e game."

 

[gorice]

I've got a bunch of $1 itch.io games that will really screw up that thinking.

I think there's probably a sweet spot somewhere in the vast middle.

Well, yes.

does that apply to anything else (houses, cars, dinners, movies, …)?

Movies, absolutely. Dinners, most of the time. Houses... Not exactly, but all those McMansions I see going up nearby aren't built to last.

 

[Bill Zebub]

...because I discovered Shadowdark, which is (almost) exactly everything I have ever wanted in a fantasy RPG.




Except hammers.

 

[Redwizard007]

There is a post in the multiverse, which clearly will outline the flaws of Wizards, 5e, and 5.5. That will, with laser precision, call out the many sins of this new version, and the fatal flaw of post-Tashas 5e.

This is not that post.

Now...deep breath.



The poll options are obviously valid.

Issue the First: 5e has been garbage, and is a lost cause.

This is obviously only partly true. 5e on release, was not garbage. It did enough to beg to be let back in our lives after the debacle of 4e, where Wizards erroneously thought they had the answer on what 'the people' wanted and in their hubris, their arrogance, their ivory tower, they got it dead wrong, and so we got the apology edition that called back out to the true base of D&D, and said 'please, take us back'.

Eventually however well Wizards has proven that they will listen to the wrong people, make the wrong choices and so with Tashas, the path was established.

Now, thankfully not all is lost, they did after all include Alignment in 5.5, so clearly someone with sense still is employed at Wizards, and they were able to piss off the type of guy who writes about Classism in backgrounds, so its not a total failure.

It is however, close enough.

Issue the Second: D&D isnt as good as X.

This is obviously right on the money. Shadowdark, Pirate Borg? DCC? Any number of OSR games? All better. Objectively.

This doesnt even need to be defended. Everyone knows its true.

Issue the Third aka "then why are you still here": Its complicated or is it?

If D&D is so bad, why stay here to complain about it?

Well you see, the answer to that is also very simple, even if people always want to overcomplicate literally everything, instead of just pull their heads out and realize the simple truth.

The problem is not D&D. The problem isnt really even 5e. Baldur's Gate 3 proves that D&D, Forgotten Realms, the players options, thats not the issue at all.

The problem is Wizards, and whatever, or whoever, is motivating them to make the wrong choices with the game in terms of tone, presentation, and rules updates.

So why stay here? Because BG3 proves that the issues dont need to exist at all, and the IP could actually be salvaged.

I love the tone of this post.

 

[Scribe]

I love the tone of this post.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Now, thankfully not all is lost, they did after all include Alignment in 5.5, so clearly someone with sense still is employed at Wizards, and they were able to piss off the type of guy who writes about Classism in backgrounds, so its not a total failure.

Well you see, the answer to that is also very simple, even if people always want to overcomplicate literally everything, instead of just pull their heads out and realize the simple truth.

The problem is not D&D. The problem isnt really even 5e. Baldur's Gate 3 proves that D&D, Forgotten Realms, the players options, thats not the issue at all.

The problem is Wizards, and whatever, or whoever, is motivating them to make the wrong choices with the game in terms of tone, presentation, and rules updates.

So why stay here? Because BG3 proves that the issues dont need to exist at all, and the IP could actually be salvaged.

Fun fact, there is no alignment in BG3, and it has the sort of nuanced complex characters that the alignment discourages.

Also, classism of the backgrounds obviously is an issue, and something I pointed out the moment I learned of how they worked. And unlike with the species, where different abilities due wildly different biology make quite a bit sense and offence requires reading the species as allegory to human ethnicities, here no such allegorical interpretation is needed; it is just plain "classism is true and justified in D&D" embedded in the rules. Aristocrats truly are smarter and more charming than the dumb and ugly peasants!

 

[Scribe]

Fun fact, there is no alignment in BG3, and it has the sort of nuanced complex characters that the alignment discourages.

Also, classism of the backgrounds obviously is an issue, and something I pointed out the moment I learned of how they worked. And unlike with the species, where different abilities due wildly different biology make quite a bit sense and offence requires reading the species as allegory to human ethnicities, here no such allegorical interpretation is needed; it is just plain "classism is true and justified in D&D" embedded in the rules. Aristocrats truly are smarter and more charming than the dumb and ugly peasants!

Do you really want to get into this in what is very much a tongue in cheek thread?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Do you really want to get into this in what is very much a tongue in cheek thread?

Not necessarily, but it was brought up. Besides, there is nothing more traditional than derailing a tread with an alignment debate!

EDIT: But for what it's worth, I agree with you that BG3 is in many ways an example of "doing D&D right."