D&D 5E Why Don't We Simplify 5e?

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Yep. After 40ish years of gaming, I didn’t realize how complicated (or maybe in-depth is better) 5th edition was; not until I thought about introducing my son and his friend to playing. Both have ADHD to different levels, and trying to figure out how to introduce the game and to what level was eye opening. There are a lot of helpful blogs, hacks, and articles on the web on how to introduce the game (to kids, to beginners, etc.), and they are by and large awesome. But it still remains that D&D 5th is not a light and easy game.

Heck, even the old group of players I have played with since 1st ed don't have all the rules fully under their belts.

I am thinking of stepping out of my comfort zone and diving into some more narrative games.

I would say it is very easy to play without many rules. You just need to know to tell the DM what you want to do, what dice to roll, and that is about it.

 

[BookTenTiger]

This does make me wonder what a FATE: Accelerated version of 5e would look like...

If I am remembering right, FATE Accelerated just had abilities and some powers you made up, no skills.

5eA could just have the six ability scores and no skills. Your lineage and class could give you advantage when doing certain narrative things, like Sneaking or Perceiving. Or just to ability checks in general!

There would be classes but no subclasses. Each class would give you some base powers that improve over time, but you wouldn't necessarily get new powers. Maybe power trees that somewhat resemble subclasses? So a cleric, for example, could choose to invest in a branch of Life powers or Light powers or War powers? That might be getting too complicated already.

How would spells be simplified?

Again you could have a handful of different spells that can then be invested in when leveling up. You could base them on the different spell domains, like an Evocation Spell that does elemental damage, and a Conjuration Spell that summons a monster. Rather than having separate spells for Fireball and Lightning Bolt, you could just have one Elemental Blast spell that you can use to target one enemy (more damage) or a bunch (less damage).

I could also see using Advantage and Disadvantage as a generic tool to replicate various maneuvers and powers... The guideline could be "if you want to do something tricky roll it with disadvantage." If it succeeds, you get an extra effect, like knocking an enemy down, etc.

Get rid of Saving Throws, and just have three defenses: AC, Fortitude, Will. All effects are active rolls instead of a mix of attacks and Saving Throws.

Hm! Lots of ideas here, and it's fun to think about!

I think one interesting goal of a Simplified Version of 5e would be to be able to sit down and play a High Level Game quickly. To me, high levels are when D&D's complexity transforms into complication.

 

[Ancalagon]

Ugh. No.

edit: And no, there aren't. There are better systems than DnD for you to do that. That's it.

Your reply confuses me.

So there are NO better systems than D&D 5e to play "game of OC creation and collaborative storytelling". (that is a very bold claim btw). But there are better systems for ME to do that? How can there be NO better systems, and can there be better systems for me?

(btw is OC "original character creation"? btw? I assumed but I just realized I don't know).

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

The complexity of 5e hits home when I have to explain aspects of the system to newer players. A lot of players just are not really interested in learning too many rules, including even knowing how their character's abilities work. The result is that the more experienced players or dm has to constantly explain things or look things up for players (spell descriptions are a prime culprit here).

Of course you don’t have to do that. 5e works fine as hoc

 

[billd91]

Your reply confuses me.

So there are NO better systems than D&D 5e to play "game of OC creation and collaborative storytelling". (that is a very bold claim btw). But there are better systems for ME to do that? How can there be NO better systems, and can there be better systems for me?

Because that's a subjective evaluation. Any claim that Troika or other systems are better are by your evaluation, not necessarily everyone else's.

 

[GMMichael]

Whoa. Lots of replies. Let's start somewhere...

Because there's not a lot of desire among our posters for something simpler?

This leads to other questions: do our posters crave complexity? Are simplicity-seekers less likely to be posting at ENWorld? Where's the desire for elegance?

A path to a pretty simple game is already present. PHB only, don't use feats. Just have the GM wing it on the DCs of skill checks. And... you're basically done.

As some other posters have commented - simple is subjective. Simplifying though, can usually be done. For example, I look at the Rules FAQ for mounted combat and think that there's gotta be an easier way. Something like:

Mounted Combat: mounting and dismounting cost 5 feet of movement. While mounted, your speed becomes that of your mount, and you can choose to make Attack actions as yourself or as your mount.

Does that make the game better or worse? Is it easier for n00bs to digest? I don't know, but I can't say that I've seen a lot of similar posts/discussions.

 

[Umbran]

This does make me wonder what a FATE: Accelerated version of 5e would look like...

If I am remembering right, FATE Accelerated just had abilities and some powers you made up, no skills.

Close, but not quite. But yes, I think you could FAE-ify D&D. (FAE is the standard abbreviation for "Fate Accelerated" - not that E is prominent in the name, but it makes it easy to say).

FAE has "Approaches" instead of stats - Careful, Clever, Flashy, Forceful, Quick, and Sneaky. You could swap those out for the D&D stats, or not, I suppose.

FAE then has Aspects and Stunts, which together cover all the areas of class abilities and skills. Each character specifically has a "High Concept" aspect, which tells you in a few words what the character is. For D&D, you can pack a lot into the High Concept - race, class, subclass, and even some very basic background can fit in there - Half-orc Totem Warrior of the Hokey-Pokey Clan, for example, is a perfectly good High Concept Aspect.

Aspects are great for broad classes of things you want a character to be good at occasionally (you have a spend a Fate Point to use them). Ranger of the High Hills as an aspect means that you can pull out a wide variety of rangery stuff now and then.

Specific skills and special abilities that you want to use frequently fit into stunts FAE has two forms of stunts:

1) Since I <have quality> I get a +2 whenever I <Action> with <Approach> in <circumstance>.
2) Since I <have quality> I can do <special thing> in <circumstance> once per session.

So, for example:
Since I am a Master of Melee, I get a + 2 whenever I Forcefully Attack in melee combat.
Since I am a Military-trained Sniper, I get a +2 whenever I Carefully Attack with a firearm.
Because I am a Trained Thief, I get a +2 when I Carefully Overcome mechanical obstacles (like locks and traps).
Because I am Quick on the Draw, once per session I can choose to go first in a physical conflict.

FAE isn't great for managing long lists of detailed spells, but classes of spells become simple:

Because I am a Fire-Evoking Wizard, I get a +2 whenever I Cleverly Attack with Fire Magic.
This would wrap all your fire combat spells in one big bundle.
Because I am a Bard of the College of Glamour, I get a +2 when I Flashily Overcome social obstacles.
Because I am a Cleric of Life, I get +2 when I Carefully Overcome to remove stress and Consequences.

Or class abilities
Because I am a Druid of the Moon Circle, once per session I can turn into a bear.

And so on.

 

[jmartkdr2]

If I wanted to simplify 5e to introduce it to new players, I'd be inspired by the Basic (from BECMI) approach and to the following:

• Fewer classes, probably only Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard
• Each Fighter is a Champion, Clerics are Clerics of Light or maybe Light, Rogue are Thieves, Wizards are Evokers
• Pre-gen characters, to be chosen based on description of archetypes
• Limited spell selection, with more to be introduced as the game progresses
• Human-only characters, with other races to be introduced during play

In short, start with less options and build them up as things get more advanced.

On the other hand I honestly struggle with looking at other systems for this job; I fail to see what's helpful in playing DnD while using totally different rules: if those are more appealing to me, I would just use them (also because the jump to full DnD would be meaningless at that point).

If you make each class cookie-cutter and generic for the class as a whole, I think you can include more classes. IE you can just throw in land druid, bear-totem barbarian, lore bard, fiend warlock, dragon sorcerer...

12 classes isn't too much. 45 subclasses could well be, however.

This then ties back to not-quite-pregens: pre-pick spells and other variable features (except maybe Fighting Style), make other quickstart decisions, definitely cut non-humans (except for special cases: I might allow a wood elf ranger or tiefling warlock), pre-pick backgrounds. The player can pick their own name (with a list of suggestions)

For the second character they play (assuming they didn't die in the first session), they can dive into the PHB and go through the whole process. And/or after they get through the first tier they can re-make their character or make a new one, if they like.

EDIT: and there's several features that could be simplified without breaking things. Divine Sense could be always on an less precise, rage could just last until the end of combat, several spells could be a lot easier, things like that. But that's a bigger project.

 

[Umbran]

This leads to other questions: do our posters crave complexity? Are simplicity-seekers less likely to be posting at ENWorld? Where's the desire for elegance?

I don't think it has to do with seeking or desire. I think it has to do with the nature of conversation.

Complicated things with lots of edge cases and questionable fiddly-bits make for good conversation topics. A thing that is simple, operates smoothly, has few edge cases and so on doesn't need discussion, because it just works, and there's not much to talk about.

So, the boards, by their nature, selects for conversations about complicated things.

It also has to do with the nature of the question - "Why don't we discuss simplifyign D&D?" is basically asking "Why don't we talk about a major redesign project that none of us are actually dedicated to doing?"

 

[Wolfram stout]

I would say it is very easy to play without many rules. You just need to know to tell the DM what you want to do, what dice to roll, and that is about it.

Yes, you can certainly simplify 5e by removing some of the rules. Especially Character Generation.

Again, I find the core engine simple, or at least easy to simplify. But by the book Character Generation is not simple, even if you limit it to just the PHB. Limiting it to just the Basic does indeed make it more simple.

And yes there are many ways to make it make it even easier. There have been lots of good ideas in the thread.

For myself, for teaching younger people I did a hybrid Pre-Generated Character. I let my son choose race and class (he was very familiar with Lord of the Rings, so that was easy) then I built him the elven wizard he wanted, but I let him pick his starting spells. His Character Sheet was Hit Points, Armor Class, Initiative and his spell list, with a check boxes by spell level for tracking.

Side Question: I see several people mention getting rid of gridded combat for simplicity. For myself, have miniatures and grids make it easier for the game to flow. It gives a clear cut visual that seems to cut down on questions. Does gridded combat make it more complicated for some people?