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

[Jaeger]

Neither do I, but I think more people drop well and deeply into a rut than I suspect you do.

I would say ultimately unquantifiable, but entirely possible. I'm not omniscient.

Its not about the rules (though going from the particulars of D&D which have a notable degree of stylization present in few other games that are not derivatives from those is not, I think, as trivial for many people as you're suggesting), but learning that you just can't run CoC or Vampire in the same mindset as D&D and have it go well (as I noted, you probably can do that to some extent with SR or Cyberpunk)

I have seen players struggle with adjusting their "D&D mindset" when transitioning to other RPGs to be more of an actual issue..

I think this has a lot to do with the GM's spending more time with the rules before play starts, so they have had more time to absorb the differences and 'mentally switch gears' as it were. Whereas the players have to do so mostly during play after getting a short rules rundown.

You might be right, but I've seen enough of it (and people transitioning specifically talking about their problems with it) over the years to stand by my position that its extremely common.

(Its not just limited to D&D either; people used to one particular game both in system and the type of things you do in it will often have trouble going to the next one unless they do it early. Its just that the nature of the beast means a very large percentage of people who have that situation are going to come form D&D just because of the reality of where people tend to enter the hobby).

I think our different experiences in the hobby have largely shaped our views.

For me the big transitioning issues on the GM side you cite have been essentially non-existent from what I have seen.

From my experience what I have seen to be an extremely common attitude is that a very large percent of D&D groups utterly refuse to even consider playing a different RPG at all.

IMHO this is the crux of our disagreement.

i.e. I have read several posts on this forum of GM's with players that take several minutes to decide what to do on their turn in combat as a normal occurrence. Every round!

As a GM and Player that would drive me Insane! It is a play experience that is completely outside my frame of reference. Yet I have seen it mentioned often enough by different posters that it must be a thing for some groups.

Thank goodness I've never had to deal with anything like that!

 

[Jaeger]

1000 times this.

Complete-sentence prose is nice and all, but there's a lot to be said for defining some terms and structure, and then just rattling off the essentials.

Yessssss...

This is something 5e (And a several other RPG's) are really bad at.

I get that writing in so-called "conversational language" seems to be de rigueur these days...

But it can be a downright counter-productive way of presenting a useable rules set.

For behold, if thine customers cannot findeth an answer from on high quickly during a session because thine rule is buried in a wall of conversational text. Then verily, thou art doing it wrong.

 

[overgeeked]

Yessssss...

This is something 5e (And a several other RPG's) are really bad at.

I get that writing in so-called "conversational language" seems to be de rigueur these days...

But it can be a downright counter-productive way of presenting a useable rules set.

For behold, if thine customers cannot findeth an answer from on high quickly during a session because thine rule is buried in a wall of conversational text. Then verily, thou art doing it wrong.

But that also pushes DMs to just make it up, which is a goal of the edition. Rulings not rules, etc. So they're kinda doing it right, form their stated goals. It's still maddening for people who want more than "go away kid, you bother me" from the game's designers.

 

[Jaeger]

But that also pushes DMs to just make it up, which is a goal of the edition. Rulings not rules, etc. So they're kinda doing it right, form their stated goals. It's still maddening for people who want more than "go away kid, you bother me" from the game's designers.

Lazy writing IMHO. 5e relies far too much on its network effect to smooth over its rough edges.

"Rulings not rules", does not preclude having the rules part clear and easily accessible within the actual 'rule book'!

A GM will have to make rulings even with something crunchier like 3e, and they don't stop at the lighter end with B/X or its clones like OSE (Old School Essentials).

But even with a lighter game a GM can't remember everything, so having a organized and easily referenced rule book is nothing to be sneezed at. In fact one of the chief virtues of buying OSE as opposed to finding a copy of original B/X is its superior organization.

When those rules are written in a ambiguous conversational fashion and you are only inconsistently able to reference them in a timely manner at the table during play - then one can expect GM rulings based on that house of cards to share the same traits. Garbage in, garbage out.

The rules provide the framework on which the GM makes their rulings.

With an accessible and tightly written rules to use as a framework, it is more likely that a prospective GM's rulings will be made in a more clear and consistent manner.

Quality in, quality out...

 

[overgeeked]

Lazy writing IMHO. 5e relies far too much on its network effect to smooth over its rough edges.

"Rulings not rules", does not preclude having the rules part clear and easily accessible within the actual 'rule book'!

A GM will have to make rulings even with something crunchier like 3e, and they don't stop at the lighter end with B/X or its clones like OSE (Old School Essentials).

But even with a lighter game a GM can't remember everything, so having a organized and easily referenced rule book is nothing to be sneezed at. In fact one of the chief virtues of buying OSE as opposed to finding a copy of original B/X is its superior organization.

When those rules are written in a ambiguous conversational fashion and you are only inconsistently able to reference them in a timely manner at the table during play - then one can expect GM rulings based on that house of cards to share the same traits. Garbage in, garbage out.

The rules provide the framework on which the GM makes their rulings.

With an accessible and tightly written rules to use as a framework, it is more likely that a prospective GM's rulings will be made in a more clear and consistent manner.

Quality in, quality out...

Preaching to the choir, mate.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I would say ultimately unquantifiable, but entirely possible. I'm not omniscient.

Same. I can only judge by my general and specific experiences with people here, but there's absolutely room for me to be wrong here.

I have seen players struggle with adjusting their "D&D mindset" when transitioning to other RPGs to be more of an actual issue..

I think this has a lot to do with the GM's spending more time with the rules before play starts, so they have had more time to absorb the differences and 'mentally switch gears' as it were. Whereas the players have to do so mostly during play after getting a short rules rundown.

Possible, but I've seen enough GMs who think they can just forge ahead with what they're used to to be cynical, especially if they've been with a single game for a long time without exposure to others. I suspect a GM who ran D&D for a few months, then tried to run one of the other games you reference would adapt far better than one who'd been in a D&D hothouse (and they aren't rare) for several years and then tried to switch streams.

And I'm not sure its actually worse for players, though it may be for ones with low rules-engagement in the first place.

I think our different experiences in the hobby have largely shaped our views.

For me the big transitioning issues on the GM side you cite have been essentially non-existent from what I have seen.

Can't but shrug here.

From my experience what I have seen to be an extremely common attitude is that a very large percent of D&D groups utterly refuse to even consider playing a different RPG at all.

No, that's part of the same picture. Its really, really easy to drop into D&D and never leave. That's because if your original D&D group disintegrates, if there's any gaming population nearby at all, chances are there's more D&D games.

But its also why gaming monocultures are more likely with D&D than with anything else, so if someone is going to hop out of a game they've only played, its pretty likely to be D&D because of the numbers game. While its not impossible to find people who've only played, say, Mage, the number of people who that applies to compared to the number who've only played D&D is tiny; even people who may not have played D&D are probably more likely to have played a couple of different non-D&D games (though you might have people who've only played Storyteller, say, even if they've played multiple versions of it, but that's likely the only case where you'll hit a situation like that; I suspect the number of people who've played multiple games but all variations on Modiphus' house system is, shall we say, not large).

So the most likely game people will have heavily imprinted on when finally trying a new one is D&D. And there are all kinds of ways that can set expectations that do not apply (as I said, someone hopping from D&D to Shadowrun can probably conceptually adapt (both are heavily based around penetrating enemy areas and getting a particular result with violence on the whole, even if they're used for other purposes on occasion) but would run into much bigger problems in a typical Call of Cthuhlu campaign (or almost any horror game other than some very heavily action-horror focused ones). The mechanics might be a different story (just in another thread I've seen people seriously bothered by games where successfully hitting a target doesn't necessarily translate into successfully damaging them for example) but those are separate axes.

IMHO this is the crux of our disagreement.

i.e. I have read several posts on this forum of GM's with players that take several minutes to decide what to do on their turn in combat as a normal occurrence. Every round!

As a GM and Player that would drive me Insane! It is a play experience that is completely outside my frame of reference. Yet I have seen it mentioned often enough by different posters that it must be a thing for some groups.

Thank goodness I've never had to deal with anything like that!

There can be two different causes for that, and both occur often enough for it not to be particularly rare.

1. Decision paralysis. Some people have trouble deciding, well, anything with any consequences. Its true in their regular lives, there's no reason its going to suddenly not be true in a game even if the stakes are lower.

2. Scar tissue. People who've played with GMs who either were prone to gotchas, or were just very hard edged (or even some systems that can be that way) can develop a tendency to be very cautious and reevaluate constantly. Ideally, they should be doing this while other people are taking their turns, but, well, surprise, people don't always do things in an ideal way.

I've probably had at least four or five players over the years like that, and only rarely haven't had at least one in a group (of course some of this is while I've had many players over the years--between one campaign or another I'd say 20-30--some have been constants for, in a few cases, decades).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yessssss...

This is something 5e (And a several other RPG's) are really bad at.

I get that writing in so-called "conversational language" seems to be de rigueur these days...

But it can be a downright counter-productive way of presenting a useable rules set.

For behold, if thine customers cannot findeth an answer from on high quickly during a session because thine rule is buried in a wall of conversational text. Then verily, thou art doing it wrong.

Its a catch-22. Write your text, even the clearly technical parts like spell descriptions in terse and technical terms only, and people get worked up about how off-putting and curt it is. Write it more conversationally and people talk about it being bloated.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Is there a way to eliminate complexity without eliminating choices? Aren't the choices where much of the complexity resides?

I personally would like to see David Black (creator of The Black Hack) or Hankerin Ferinale (creator of the Index Card RPG) do a Kickstarter for a conversion of the entire contents of the 3.5E, PF1E SRD, 5E SRD, and PF2SRD into their system. Seriously.

Keeping the system simple, but have all the races, classes, gear, spells, monsters available as choices. The ultimate interface of simple (streamlined play) and "complex" (diverse choices).

I think whichever of the high quality "simple D&D" RPGs does this first, could make a huge impact -- like the impact Pathfinder 1E made vs. D&D 4E. Nowadays lots of people want simple play but with all the character features. This could really be D&D 5.75.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Of course that assumes all of those things could be converted into a simpler system and still maintain their distinction. I am, shall we say, dubious.

 

[Mort]

Of course that assumes all of those things could be converted into a simpler system and still maintain their distinction. I am, shall we say, dubious.

I think that's a valid concern. BUT I do think 5e, particularly the DMG, could be MUCH better organized and explained.

The system isn't THAT complicated but you wouldn't know it by the way the DMG is organized! If you don't know what you're looking for, good luck finding it!

Better organization, better examples of the play loop and overall better presentation in the DMG would essentially simplify the game by showing it's not as complicated as it appears.