D&D 5E Why does 5E SUCK?

[Jeff Albertson]

Even when Gygax ranted against the Schwarzenegger Conan movie, then created a Barbarian class just to do Conan, it didn't capture him that well.

Yet more spreading of misinformation, man, you 4vengers will not let up. Gygax did not design the Barbarian class to represent Conan, at all, shame on you for blatantly lying. Oh, and the film, Conan the Barbarian, rocks, much better than any movies with the D&D label slapped on it.

 

[Imaro]

Well, you and your friends would be wrong Find the very first set of handbooks before those later reprinted in trade paperback format. A few issues into the series numerous erratum begin that toned down the strength levels of characters. The changes were fiat from the editor in chief to make things more "believable" rather than comic book accuracy.
Shooter fiat was fairly common at the time and, much of what is listed about powers was not from the comics, but from Shooter and Gruenwald. Spiderman's web-crawling being listed as being electo-static is a perfect example. According to John Byrne, Jim Shooter (editor and chief at the time) ordered Gruenwald to use electro-static in the handbooks to explain Spider-man's climbing, because Shooter mistakingly believed that spiders climbed by sticky pads on their feet like most insects and considered it to be "icky". Apparently, the "correct" thinking at the time was that spiders had small hairs that could hook into surface imperfections (according to Byrne).
(Note: Twenty or so years later, scientists would find out that most spiders had even smaller hairs on those hairs which allowed them to climb using van der Waals force (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-04/iop-smb041504.php). A year or two after that scientists discovered that tarantulas actually do produce silk pads from their feet to support their climbing on sheer surfaces when those hairs are not enough (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060927201410.htm) )

Honestly I probably wasn't around for the first handbooks but I'd love to see an article or something on what you're stating above... it'd be a fascinating read. As to the erratum... If true, I don't think that being issued makes them any more or less official....It just means corrections were made, something that's never done in the actual comic stories. Another thing I'd be curious to know is, if what you say is true above, was there a point where the handbooks began to accurately reflect the heroes and if so when that was...

 

[Imaro]

In what sense? For instance, what can the characters do in the comics that can't be done in the game?

I know Marvel comics pretty well, and none of the datafiles I've looked at - which is plenty of them - looks to me as if it gets the character wrong.

I'll comment briefly on this but I don't think getting into a long drawn out discussion about MHRpg would really result in either of us changing our opinion about it.

IMO, MHRpg fails to model characters at the resolution level because it is not granular enough and then relies on the players to justify why their combination of dice resulted in a victory. As an example there is nothing in the game that stops say Emma Frost from beating the Thing in a straight up arm wrestling contest if she rolls high enough (and with the low granularity of the system and both having enhanced strength this could actually happen often enough)... but this just wouldn't happen in the comic book. Now MHRpg doesn't prevent this from happening... but instead seems to say, basically don't do that, only do things Emma Frost could do in the comics and if you do do that then it's up to you to justify why you were able to do it... So yes as long as you have players who know the character from the comic books and are willing to stick to the limits of the characters as presented in the comic books then it models them well...

However if you have the type of player who doesn't know the character, doesn't care about the narrative of the comics as they exist, or is looking to eek out power with bull justifications... you can run into all kind of problems with the abstract nature of doing things in MHRpg... You can claim this is a player problem, but IMO the nature of the game modeling stories as opposed to the specific characters is what opens the game up to this type of abuse.

 

[Imaro]

I suspect that I am not the only person who finds D&D's spell mechanics are very particular way of handling magical abilities, that doesn't do a particularly good job of modelling mystical abilities in general. Even 5e recognises this, using a non-spell framework for druidical shapechange, monk's martial arts, etc.

But this is pure preference for implementation, now you have every right not to like how the fighters magical powers were implemented (personally I'd rather have the wider choice spells tend bring as opposed to a limited list of abilities) but there's nothing objectively better about modeling magical powers with spells vs. modelling them with discrete abilities (that usually mimic spell abilities anyway)... and it still doesn't change the fact that mystically endowed warriors are a pretty common archetype, so claiming that a subclass based on them is somehow not valid doesn't make sense...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So here is an interesting idea:

Non Weapon Proficiencies

These would be proficiencies a player could learn just like tool, vehicle, and language proficiencies, but they would grant players interesting new capabilities.

For example:

Leap of the Clouds
Requirement: level 5+, proficiency with Athletics
Benefit: When you take the Das action, double the distance of any jump you make this turn.

Demolisher
Requirement: Level 5+, STR 15+
Benefit: You deal double damage to objects and structures.

Endurance
Requirement: level 5+, Con 15+
Benefit: You gain proficiency with Con checks

Powerful Swimmer
Requirement: Level 5+, proficiency with Athletics, STR 15+
Benefit: You gain a swim speed equal to half your speed

Expert climber
Requirement: Level 5+, proficiency with Athletics, STR 15+
Benefit: You gain a climb speed equal to half your speed

Legendary Strength
Requirement: level 11+, STR 17+, proficiency with Athletics
Benefit: double your carrying capacity

Rock Hurling
Requirement: level 11+, STR 17+, proficiency with Athletics
Benefit: you gain proficiency with improvised thrown weapons. You can use your STR instead of your Dexterity for the attack and damage of such weapons. Such weapons use a d6 for damage instead of a d4.

You could have such non weapon proficiencies for other attributes as well. Read lips could be a wisdom (Perception) based trick. A Dex (Acrobatics) trick could be walking so softly you don't leave a trail. Etc.

Yeah, in my own hacking on 4e the result is that XP no longer exist in any form. All sorts of progression have been merged into what are called 'boons', which are either minor (most, if not all, of the things on your list above would probably qualify as minor) or major (character-defining things, which often grant the character several related capabilities, the 5e feats would probably qualify in many cases, though I would probably add another related feature to each one).

Instead of granting some form of XP and then simply grafting some new player-selected feature onto the character out of the blue, the boon system works the opposite way. As you adventure you acquire, via narrative logic, various boons. When your character has received a major boon, her level is increased by one, reflecting an overall increase in the characters skill, luck, and connections with fate. Interestingly in this kind of system it is also logically pretty easy to DE-level a character.

In any case, the sort of concept you're putting forward, essentially '4e-like feats as a mechanically unregulated resource' corresponds exactly to the minor boons in my game. There's really no mechanical regulation at all, if you meet whatever criteria the GM sets then you achieve the boon. I guess in principle you could stack up zillions of such boons without advancing in level, but given the amount of influence the GM has over narrative logic that sort of 'sandbagging' is unlikely to really happen. For instance GM can simply offer the character a major boon and put them in a bind where they must either accept it or fail to achieve some goal or other. Actually that would be amusingly parallel to a few different comic-book story elements, lol.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

But this is pure preference for implementation, now you have every right not to like how the fighters magical powers were implemented (personally I'd rather have the wider choice spells tend bring as opposed to a limited list of abilities) but there's nothing objectively better about modeling magical powers with spells vs. modelling them with discrete abilities (that usually mimic spell abilities anyway)... and it still doesn't change the fact that mystically endowed warriors are a pretty common archetype, so claiming that a subclass based on them is somehow not valid doesn't make sense...

I just much preferred the way in which these abilities were all expressed in a common format within 4e's system. If you could do something, it was pretty much a power (yes, particularly early on there was a tendency to express things in a different style, but the devs rapidly realized the benefits of the power approach). There were many things which were simply 'attributes' (IE if you got a bonus to a defense or something that isn't a power because the character doesn't DO anything), but to a large extent there was this common currency. It made it pretty easy to both reflavor (because the common currency told you what druid powers should be like, so you could reflavor a fighter power pretty easily) as well as easy to simply graft powers onto characters. In fact you could really almost just compose characters out of practically arbitrary selections.

This is what lead me to basically discarding the notion that what you can do should be dictated by class at all per-se. Instead I've taken my inspiration from the DMG2's concept of generalizing 'items' to be things like training, god-given benefits, etc. I was pretty disappointed that 5e didn't carry on this design concept and extend it. I don't have a huge hate for vancian/pseudo-vancian magic, but it is an awkward system that cannot be applied outside of spell casting really, and the very limited schematic format of the non-casting classes is pretty disappointing really, as is the lack of commonality that enabled so much of 4e's easy ad-hoc system hacking.

 

[Manbearcat]

The difficulty of modelling fictional heroes in D&D - especially non-wizardly ones - doesn't shed any light on the contrast between fiction and RPGs. It sheds light on idiosyncracies of D&D's mechanics. For instance, the Marvel Heroic RPG does an excellent job of modelling the fictional characters (Marvel superheroes) that players play in that system.

Yeah I'm going to disagree with this as well... I have the Marvel Heroic rpg and what it models is comic books, as in their narrative structure, pacing, idiosyncrasies, inconsistencies, etc. and it does a good job at this... that said IMO it doesn't really model the actual characters very well...

Trying to get my head around this one a little bit Imaro. I absolutely agree with the first part of your statement. A really good encapsulation. MHRP's systemization of comic books into a TTRPG captures those genre tropes beautifully. However, I'm really trying to figure out how the second part of your position works out. It certainly hasn't in my table experience of GMing it (probably...10 sessions at about 2-3 hours apiece?) but I'm struggling to grok your surmise at even the theoretical level. Here is a one quick example of how this systemization has worked out to produce both excellence in genre and fictional character modelling.

Take this Deadpool datafile that we use for our home game. To properly model Deadpool, he needs to exhibit equal parts:

1) Wile E Coyote - his indestructibleness, his ridiculous ACME toolbox, and his absurdly zany plans that have a tendency to backfire in interesting ways.

2) Bugs Bunny - his 4th wall breaking, relentless wise-cracking, and absurdly zany plans that somehow work out in the end.

3) Super Ninja Mercenary Assassiney-guy.

Current home game features The Avengers + Deadpool vs Thanos. How is the fictional modelling of Deadpool systemitized by MHRP?

* His Milestones reward 4th wall breaking, recklessness and unpredictability.
* His Godlike Stamina, Psychic Stamina, Healing Factor and Immunity make him indestructible.
* His Reckless Limit gives DP's player 1 PP while adding an open descriptor d8 to the Doom Pool, complicating his and the heroes' lives, when he fails a dice pool that includes Bottomless Satchel or Grenades.
* His Unpredictable SFX incentivizes the player to add a DAMN IT DEADPOOL d8 complication on an ally so the Deadpool's player can reroll his action dice pool.
* Obviously his Specialties model his combat acumen while his Affiliations and Distinctions cover the rest of his thematic portfolio.

What does this produce in play? Hilarity, death-wishey, super-powered, over-the-top swashbuckling Looney Toons. Deadpool kicks all kinds of butt. He gets himself in WAY over his head but rallies and recovers in the ninja-est, silliest ways possible (because he is indesctructible with an endless bag of zany tricks). He talks to the audience causing Thor/Cap/Iron Man (one player switches between those three) and Black Widow to go He drives the team crazy but pulls his weight nonetheless. And he rarely "buddies up" because no one wants to be alone with him because he tends to get that other person in a lot of trouble that is difficult to recover from. And he has a tendency to do solo hijinx to help the team out while the other two buddy up and do normal Avenger-ey stuff.

That is just Deadpool, but Thor, Cap, Iron Man, and Black Widow couldn't possibly manifest more like themselves within the Avenger's genre tropes. I'm not even sure how they could. I suppose if you literally tried your best to ignore all the thematic incentives and synergy embedded into your datafile that brings these characters to life...and somehow engaged in conflicts and approached resolution in ways entirely at odds with the character...

Maybe then?

But then I would be wondering...Ummmm why are you doing this? If you want to be Cyclops, why are you making action declarations, thematic decisions, and RPing him like Deadpool? If you want to be Doctor Strange, why are you playing him like The Thing?

This is feeling somewhat similar to the Paladin vs Fighter conversations we've all had in the past.

 

[Greg K]

Honestly I probably wasn't around for the first handbooks but I'd love to see an article or something on what you're stating above... it'd be a fascinating read. As to the erratum... If true, I don't think that being issued makes them any more or less official....It just means corrections were made, something that's never done in the actual comic stories. Another thing I'd be curious to know is, if what you say is true above, was there a point where the handbooks began to accurately reflect the heroes and if so when that was...

From John Byrne in response to a post at byrnerobotics.com about the Marvel Handbooks being a " D&D-like reference manual that categorically defines all powers using a rather arbitrary scale":

"Sadly, that was not what OHOTMU was originally intended to be.

As conceived, it was meant to be a quick reference guide, listing significant appearances (to make them easier to find, for research) and a synopsis of powers. Alas, very quickly it turned into a catalog of QUANTIFICATION, largely at Shooter's insistence (tho Mark Gruenwald was more than happy to go along!).

Shooter had grown increasingly displeased with the sometimes loosey-goosey approach to handling powers and limitations. Mostly it was just a few instances in which sloppy writing (especially from writer/editors) would confuse the issue, but Shooter liked grand, sweeping rules that covered EVERYBODY. So he pushed for precise defining AND limiting of the powers as described in OHOTMU. (WHO'S WHO, coming later, followed OHOTMU's pattern.)

Two things went very sour right away. First, Shooter used OHOTMU so slip in "stealth rewrites" of characters' origins, as when the first edition told us that Spider-Man's wall-climbing came from a "molecular interface", not from abilities he'd picked up from that spider bite. (Misinformed, Shooter thought spiders "stuck" to walls, with adhesive, and declared that "icky".) Second, when Mark could not find a previously published description of how powers worked, he made one up. Sometimes he also did that if he simply didn't LIKE the previous description. (Which is how Cyclops came to be "channeling" energy from a parallel dimension, rather than simply absorbing it from the Sun as had been stated in the X-Men's own book years earlier.)"

 

[Corpsetaker]

I just much preferred the way in which these abilities were all expressed in a common format within 4e's system. If you could do something, it was pretty much a power (yes, particularly early on there was a tendency to express things in a different style, but the devs rapidly realized the benefits of the power approach). There were many things which were simply 'attributes' (IE if you got a bonus to a defense or something that isn't a power because the character doesn't DO anything), but to a large extent there was this common currency. It made it pretty easy to both reflavor (because the common currency told you what druid powers should be like, so you could reflavor a fighter power pretty easily) as well as easy to simply graft powers onto characters. In fact you could really almost just compose characters out of practically arbitrary selections.

Looks to me like 5th edition does all this much much easier.

All you have to do is look at your stats and then do improvisation? What's the difference in a designer coming up with a power and a player coming up with something they want to do while getting the DM's okay followed by an appropriate roll. I don't agree with 4th edition doing it any better because you would then need to go through each and every power and see if there was one that fit and since you were limited to the amount and types of powers you could have, you could be stuck doing basically the same thing over and over again until you finally gained a level and swapped out "one" power.

 

[Corpsetaker]

These are the many reasons why I hate it when people try and model works of fiction into a D&D, or any RPG game.

Comics, novels, and movies are written with a specific story in mind that is planned from the beginning to the end without anything changing.

Comics are probably the worst because you can have a single city like New York that has many many comic heroes and villains that will not run into each other in the comics or you have instances where one is super powerful while another is not but through the action of the author, the lesser powerful finds a way, or circumstances come into play that allow him, to overcome the more powerful character and win the day.

D&D doesn't work this way because dice are involved and it is a living game. Even in D&D legendary heroes die and evil can win the day and end up ruling the world.