D&D 5E Why does 5E SUCK?

[tyrlaan]

I feel that it is my job as a DM to provide an entertaining play experience. I feel the DM has the most control over the gaming experience due to his role in the cooperative fiction in a role-playing game. Players have little to no control over each other. They can't change their tastes, personalities, or other such things to suit another player at the table. It's too much to ask and I feel some DMs in this discussion are basically saying, "Everyone needs to get along and talk to the other person before making their character to be sure they aren't making something the other person would be unhappy with." I don't feel players should have to do that. They can do it if they want to, but I do not expect it. The player is only responsible for making a character that will be fun for him to play, not a character that will be fun for him and fun for player x,y, and z. He doesn't need to run it by the other players before making what he's making. Maybe I'm misunderstanding all of you, but it seems like you're saying Player 1 has to check his concept with Player 2, 3, and 4. I don't agree with that if that is what is being said.

My group usually does ask each other what they're making because they don't want to overlap concepts or have too many of the same class. Backgrounds are usually individualized. They don't check feat choices by each other unless they're min-maxing as a group like the bard who may take the Inspiring Leader feat to empower the Druid's pixies from conjure woodland beings. That is coordinated group min-maxing. That is example of the players working together to enhance the fun of at least two of them, though it might piss off the other players. I guess we will see.

Speaking for myself, what I do is on par with what you describe. As GM, I try to catch ugly potential interactions ahead of time, and I might steer some changes with characters before the game starts, but I don't expect the players to work all that out before we begin.

My main point of contention is fun is too subjective. I can't be sure one player will have fun playing with another character. The people usually get along, but sometimes they don't love the other guy's character concept or his play-style. I can't control that. I can only provide them with clear parameters as a DM that I feel will ensure some semblance of balance and mitigate some of the worse min-maxing possibilities.

I have more ability as a DM to control the fun of the group by making the adventure fun and ensuring each player gets spotlight time.

Agree

It's a common case in my group. They snipe at each other now and again. One saying the other min-maxes all the time and damages the game. The other guy telling him mind his business, he likes to build his character the way he wants.

I don't envy you, that just sounds irritating.

I do run a very fun, immersive game. I've gotten more than a few people addicted to their characters almost like it was a second life. I truly like to invest the time to make the character seem like a living, breathing person with a full life. Gamers usually have such great imaginations they love to buy into the idea of living in another world as some extraordinary hero.

It sounds like our style isn't all that different afterall; the more we're talking the more that's coming into view.

Having conversations with a player that's burning with excitement to sort out a new development does wonders for keeping me energized as a GM.

 

[Celtavian]

Speaking for myself, what I do is on par with what you describe. As GM, I try to catch ugly potential interactions ahead of time, and I might steer some changes with characters before the game starts, but I don't expect the players to work all that out before we begin.



Agree



I don't envy you, that just sounds irritating.



It sounds like our style isn't all that different afterall; the more we're talking the more that's coming into view.

Having conversations with a player that's burning with excitement to sort out a new development does wonders for keeping me energized as a GM.

I figured we were probably closer than we thought. More of matter word choice than difference opinion.

Yeah. The sniping does get irritating now and then. I mostly try not to allow it to go to far and make an argument. We've had a few blow ups where people stopped playing together for a long time. Those are the worst.

 

[MoutonRustique]

My only quibble with this is over the nature of the "predictability". The outcomes will be mechanically fairly predictable - but the fiction associated with those outcomes can be as varies as the players and GM like (especially when it comes not non-combat resolution).

Indeed. Since these (the DC guidelines) are a mechanical tool - it was implied that this was regarding the "mechanical"/die roll aspect of the result. I could have been clearer on this aspect, it's true.

 

[Manbearcat]

I think you can have that. I just think that some people are honestly saying that, to them, taking a technical approach is not what they want when they GM. I'm somewhere in the middle (between art and science), I think, but I do love me my crunchy systems.

Yup. I agree that is what they're saying. There is really no meat to the "art portion" of GMing that we're able to discuss. That aspect is a very personal one (having to do with aesthetic preferences, natural aptitude, erudition, etc).

However, as a collective, I think openly (and in good faith) engaging in the "meaty" portion of GMing (the engineering/technical component) and how that interfaces with system can only be productive.

However...

On the lack of play example, I have no real hypothesis.

On the objection to analysis, I do have a hypothesis. There are people who enjoy books and films, for example, but disagree vociferously with even the idea of doing serious analysis or criticism of them. I think a lot of the resistance to analysing GMing comes from a similar position. The thought is that to analyse is already to change the practice, and make it something it isn't and ought not to be (eg a deliberate or considered thing rather than a spontaneous thing).

A related sort of objection to analysis is that the analyst is trying to set him-/herself up as intellectually superior to those who engage in the activity without analysing.

Unfortunately, this is where I come down on this. All three actually, including the inexplicable nature of not sharing and breaking down the machinery of the TTRPG conversation at work with play examples that we can discuss (like you did in your 4e thread, JC...that thread was one of the best on Enworld for some time...but it is very uncommon.).

I think complaints about the aesthetics of RPG books and the pre-play experience of reading them (feeling/reading like engineering manuals rather than mystical, wondrous tomes) is a strong line of evidence for paragraph 2. I think Mearls et al speaking specifically to this point during the design phase of 5e is instructive.

 

[pemerton]

I think complaints about the aesthetics of RPG books and the pre-play experience of reading them (feeling/reading like engineering manuals rather than mystical, wondrous tomes) is a strong line of evidence for paragraph 2.

Just adding to this - when I read a RPG book, I enjoy thinking about situations I might construct as a GM - with the fiction as part of that. But I'm not generally looking to get sucked into an imaginary world, as if I were reading a book or watching a film.

To make it more concrete - I get much more pleasure from reading the 4e MM, which makes me think about things I might do in my game, then from reading a 90s Planescape or Ravenloft adventure, which just makes me frustrated ("Why would my players ever have their PCs make that choice, without which the railroad won't work?").

 

[madrivi]

Not-a-bit-of-a-thing.

Thanks to 5e i have come back, it made me take the arms of DM'ing again, is not the perfect edition but 1e and 2e were not pristine and i loved them! Perfect is boring...

Long life to 5e!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Unfortunately, this is where I come down on this. All three actually, including the inexplicable nature of not sharing and breaking down the machinery of the TTRPG conversation at work with play examples that we can discuss (like you did in your 4e thread, JC...that thread was one of the best on Enworld for some time...but it is very uncommon.).

I think complaints about the aesthetics of RPG books and the pre-play experience of reading them (feeling/reading like engineering manuals rather than mystical, wondrous tomes) is a strong line of evidence for paragraph 2. I think Mearls et al speaking specifically to this point during the design phase of 5e is instructive.

Lots of GMs post, so its a much higher proportion than players who post, as a fraction of all GMs and all players. Most of each sort don't care about theory, they 'just play'. Those who DO post are more inclined to be interested in theory. So, of the small portion of players who post, they have been distilled down to that fraction who are quite interested in theory, at least they're interested in builds, etc. OTOH the % of DMs is larger, so you get more of the less focused folks, DMs who just want some advice, story ideas, pointers on what products are good, etc.

The result is you get a lot of threads with people talking about builds or balance between classes or whatever that might interest players. You get much less about technical GMing stuff, though TBH I think it isn't fair to say there is anything like a total dearth. It seems to me that this very thread managed a pretty detailed analysis of 5e's core checking system and how it might differ in use from others. I'd say there's a WEALTH of information on this site about DMing techniques and other related issues. It may be mixed in with a lot of other stuff, but I think if you identify some posters with your own interests, you can home in pretty quickly on the good stuff.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Lots of GMs post, so its a much higher proportion than players who post, as a fraction of all GMs and all players. Most of each sort don't care about theory, they 'just play'. Those who DO post are more inclined to be interested in theory. So, of the small portion of players who post, they have been distilled down to that fraction who are quite interested in theory, at least they're interested in builds, etc. OTOH the % of DMs is larger, so you get more of the less focused folks, DMs who just want some advice, story ideas, pointers on what products are good, etc.

The result is you get a lot of threads with people talking about builds or balance between classes or whatever that might interest players. You get much less about technical GMing stuff.

Player stuff is also GM stuff, since the players are the focus of the game. A player is concerned about what kind of build he can use to get the character he wants, the GM is concerned with how the builds the players might come up with will wreck his campaign....

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Player stuff is also GM stuff, since the players are the focus of the game. A player is concerned about what kind of build he can use to get the character he wants, the GM is concerned with how the builds the players might come up with will wreck his campaign....

Agreed. I've actually DMed about 100x more hours of 4e than I've played, and I was still fairly interested in the various details of building characters, at least up to a point. I certainly learned enough to go into CB and probably pick out a set of feats and powers for any given class that would produce a moderately optimized character.

 

[Diamondeye]

Yet oddly enough I used to talk to other D&D players (and RPGers more generally) about balance issues in games and systems.

Here is a quote from Gygax's column in Dragon 15 (June 1978; italics original):

Remember that D&D was developed as a game, and allowances for balance between character roles and character versus monster confrontations were made.​

And here is something I found in Dragon 84, from Jan 84), in a letter to the Forum discussing psionics options:

I would not expect this problem to have much effect on game balance.​

As [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] said, examples could easily be multiplied.

I find it bizarre that you quoted where I talked about "2E being mid-life" and then quote articles from 1984 and 1978. 2E came out about 1989, and was mid-life in 1994 or so, 10-16 years AFTER the articles you cite.

There's not a whole lot more to say. This level of historical chrry-picking is pretty normal when people can't get it through their heads that "Balance" is not axiomatically good. If you want to argue for a "balanced" system, you have to establish why it's needed. You don't get to assume it. Period. That is not open for debate.