D&D 5E Why can’t I find anything wrong with 5e?

[Tony Vargas]

Why can’t I find anything wrong with 5e?

There are many possibilities. Have you ever opened a book, for instance? If not, you may have missed a few things.

It could be that you're just not terribly judgmental. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it would put you on the far fringes of the community.

Or, it could be that you like the things that drive other people crazy.
D&D can be like music, that way.

We run the game RAW

If you really did, you'd never get past the first skill check. ;P

Watch, when we play next week someone will demand I rewrite a core mechanic and I'll be on here posting my "fix"...

Heh.

 

[Sacrosanct]

There are many possibilities. Have you ever opened a book, for instance? If not, you may have missed a few things.

It could be that you're just not terribly judgmental. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it would put you on the far fringes of the community.

Or, it could be that you like the things that drive other people crazy.

Sorry, but this is BS. Just because someone hasn't found a problem with the game doesn't mean something is wrong with them or they aren't like "normal" people.

There few, if any, actual objective problems with 5e. There are subjective problems based on personal preference. People like to act like their preferences are somehow objective, when they're not. Not your, not mine, nobody's. The problems with 5e is when it fails to do what that particular person wants it to do based on their tastes. Someone else not having the same problem doesn't mean they haven't bothered to open the book, are part of a fringe, or like things that drive other people crazy.

If there's a problem with 5e, it's with some of the players who have attitudes like this.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Sorry, but this is BS.

It's humor in the same vein as the OP. Well, or BS in the same vein as the OP, if you prefer.

There few, if any, actual objective problems with 5e.

That's really not a fair way to look at it, 'objectively.' 5e is very much a subjective experience, and each DM is likely to run it differently. Looked at objectively, it could be politely called a mess, but looking at it that way is virtually the same as not seeing it...

 

[Oofta]

Well, I've made "massive" changes.

• I use the optional rules for point buy and longer rests.
• House ruled magical gauntlets/belts/etc that modify abilities to add instead of replacing.
• Limit some of the races because they don't make sense in my world.
• Added reinforced bows that can use strength instead of dex for attack and damage.
• Explain why I rule the way I do on things like stealth, since there's a lot left up to DM prerogative.

Phew. That is a ton of changes.

One of the great things about this edition is that it feels like the rules (for lack of a better term) get out of the way and just facilitate my game.

 

[akr71]

Have I found anything "wrong?" No.
Have I found things that need clarification? Yes.
Have I found things I don't like or that I would do differently? Yes.

Am I able to still have fun playing? Yes.
Am I able to still have fun playing when I disagree with my DM's interpretation of rules? Yes. Do I rule differently when I DM? Yes.

 

[Warpiglet]

As to the OP:

I feel ya. We just get cracking and play. Every once in a while someone might ask about starting with a free feat (everyone would get it) or some such thing, but generally we just roll with it. We probably go RAI and tend to avoid combos that seem like exploits but do not do any reworking of the rules.

Lest you think I sneer at this kind of experimentation, I will note that in AD&D (1st edition only thank you!) we used spell points and got DM approved flair (e.g. a free cantrip for a character that had been an apprentice prior to thieving).

All said, we probably do not change much because 5e happened to be simialr to any houserules we had for AD&D! We were lucky that way.

But I have never personally found rules in the game to be truly off putting in need of great revision. I am sort of compulsive and like to leave things as they were new out of the box. Hell, I won't do anything other than tint windows on my car. I am not a big fan of aftermarket stuff or even third party stuff. I am even a little skeptical of splat books.

So in the end, it is simply a taste thing. OP, your group and mine happen to be lucky in finding our tastes aligned with the product. No right or wrong to be found....

 

[Caliban]

Overall I think 5e is a good system - fewer moving parts, fewer things to break.

That being said, I think the stealth rules are too vague and need to be reworked for clarity. I play a lot of Adventure League so I can't house rule anything, but I've made my personal calls on how to handle stealth that are as close to RAW and what I believe is RAI as I can manage. It's settled in my mind, but every DM seems to run Stealth slightly differently.

In the home game that I run, I've ruled that the benefits of the Healer feat are included in the Medicine skill, but regaining HP takes 10 rounds instead of a single action. (i.e. the healing is a between combat activity).

 

[Lanliss]

Why can’t I find anything wrong with 5e?
I read thread after thread, with tons of ideas for “fixing” aspects of the game and I sit here wondering "what is wrong with the players at my table?". We run the game RAW, and have not had a single mechanics-related problem. None of our characters seem over or under powered (now that we've cleared up just how many attacks our duel-wielding-fighter gets to make), the combat runs smoothly, everyone is enjoying themselves without complaining about bounded accuracy or initiative or anything.
We’ve gone through The Lost Mine of Phandelver and are about 25% of the way through Princes of the Apocalypse. I had scaled a few encounters up in the beginning of POTA because they started at level 4, but other than that? No complaints...
Is there anyone else out there who obsesses over the game enough to read these message boards, but hasn’t found the need to homebrew some new method of whatever-ing the whatever? I sometimes wonder if messing with the rules IS the game, for some. I could see how that could be someone's "fun", and that would lead to tinkering whether or not there is a need for it, just for the sake of their own enjoyment, but it seems like most rule-re-writers are fixing something they think is legitimately broken.
When I say we don't mess with the rules, do you guys automatically see us as the low-brow "philistines" of D&D? Are we playing it wrong? Not paying enough attention?
Obviously, this is a little tongue in cheek. I just can't help but wonder, when I'm on page 5 of a 18 page thread about whatever mechanic is being tinkered with;
If the guy who has been working on a better method of handling action economy for the past six months were to sit at my table for a session, would he stop at some point and say "see? this is what I'm talking about, this needs to be fixed!" while all the other players scratch their heads wondering where the problem is? Or does this hypothetical person have a style of play that illustrates or even exaggerates the issue to the point where we might actually notice?


Watch, when we play next week someone will demand I rewrite a core mechanic and I'll be on here posting my "fix"...

D&D does not have "problems". It has preferences, and many people "fix" it to meet their preferences. Your group's preferences seem to be the default, so good for you.

 

[phantomK9]

In the game that I'm currently running (and the one my friend is running) we are playing about 99% RAW straight from the books. There is only one thing that I changed and that is Inspiration.

In my game I treat Inspiration as a pool of points that the players can gain during the game much like Fate Points in FATE.
They can then spend an Inspiration point to reroll a failure in exactly the same way that True20 did Hero Points.

I've proposed a whole set of changes to some of the rules, but currently none of the players wanted to worry with implementing new rules so we are, as I said, about 99% RAW.

 

[JackOfAllTirades]

The only thing in the 5E RAW that I'd change is all the horrendously sloppy writing. The RAI, as far as anyone in our group can tell what it's supposed to be, seems okay for our purposes.

Some of Mearls & Crawfords' tweets and Sage Advice "clarifications" on the other hand, have been simply awful.