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

[Mort]

Could be. I'm only passingly familiar with 5e.

But I am familiar with PF2e (which he included in his suggestion), and most of the Ancestries and the like are not complicated for the hell of it there, but to make the actual distinctions that are desired for their being separate to mean something.

This is the general reaction I have to a lot of OSR and, honestly, lightweight games in the first place; at some point if you want distinctions to be anything but color, there has to be some mechanical overhead on that (or largely arbitrary GM management, which I know is considered a virtue in some parts of that sphere, but not to me). That doesn't mean a lot of games couldn't do a better job, at least in places, in how they arrange or explain things, but the idea that there's lots of pointless complication just doesn't seem to pass the sniff test from where I sit.

It's not pointless complication.

It's complication without adequate explanation, a different issue.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's not pointless complication.

It's complication without adequate explanation, a different issue.

No, I've seen people outright say its pointless in a lot of cases. Which usually added up to "Its making a distinction I don't care about."

 

[Mort]

No, I've seen people outright say its pointless in a lot of cases. Which usually added up to "Its making a distinction I don't care about."

Ok,

but you quoted my post about how proper cataloging, indexing and explanation can reduce the perceived complexity of 5e. That's what my post was talking about.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

No, I've seen people outright say its pointless in a lot of cases. Which usually added up to "Its making a distinction I don't care about."

I care about and respect PF2's nitty gritty distinctions in the context of a PF2 game. I own the game, though haven't played it. The closest thing I've played or DMed was 3.0, back in the day. I think PF2 is a great game--the most complex but thoroughly though-out iteration of D&D ever. I like it a lot. And I can see why those distinctions are there for the audience that Paizo is aiming for. And why those mechanical distinctions are there, in the context of the evolution from 3.5 to 3.75 to PF2. Well done.

Yet, I'm simply not that audience. Nor are most of the folks who I game with. I don't have the brain-space / time-space to master the game. Also, I have no interest in needing a laptop at the table to run the game. I'm not very computer oriented.

Despite the quality of the PF2 game, and of Paizo as a company, I'm not planning to pick up further PF products, unless I happen to buy an adventure to convert to whatever system I'm using. I've heard good things about the PF adventure arcs.

Here are my interests:

I began DMing BECMI when I was 9 years old. Then switched to 2E and 3.0. We've been playing 5E for a couple years. But honestly, it's too complicated for my table, at this time in my life. With a new job, co-conducting two choirs, etc.

It's true: I don't care about about the fiddly bits. Who cares about GP, XP, encumbrance, etc? I don't care. It's not wrong that some people care. But I don't. There is quite a lot about 5E that I don't care about. That stuff is just in my way. It bogs down our play, and fries our brains, and, in the past, has stoked arguments.

Here's what I do care about:

I love running groups through classic D&D adventures: Isle of Dread, Sanctuary of Elwyn the Ardent, Caves of Chaos, Palace of the Silver Princess, etc. In my experience, even playing a freeform LARP version of these adventures using only a deck of cards, feels like D&D.

I love the D&D Multiverse, as a multi-world setting. All the different worlds, from Mystara to Nerath to Krynn. And my/our homebrew world: The Shared World.

I love the character options -- races and classes -- as roleplaying handles. My PCs include a frogfolk, a half-ogre, a halfling shade, an awakened cat, and part-leprechaun/part-human. Also, in our world, you can "multi-race" at any time: "Hey, I just realized I have a leprechaun ancestor!" I honestly don't care much about the mechanics. Only a little bit.

I also love adventures, of all sorts. Besides the classic D&D modules, I bring in whatever I find, and place it on the ever expanding map of our homebrew world. The Shared World is a patchwork of all the modules we've played, and thereby includes everything from Phandolin to the Duchy of Berghof from the UK series to the Grand Duchy of Karameikos from the B series, to pieces of Faerun, to third-party regional maps from Goodman Games and Kobold Press. If we played it, it's on the map.

I'm adventure oriented: I value the adventure stories more than I do the particular ruleset. In the same campaign, we've run 5E, BX, Heroes & Monsters, and White Hack...and especially freeform LARP. The latter involves traipsing through fields and wood with only a deck of cards. But it's all in the same D&D world.

So that's what I do care about.

I'm especially interested in this thread because I'm prepping to run some open/public D&D at the local food co-op. And the folks who are signing up may have no technical interest. I want to provide an enjoyable experience. A "D&D-like" experience. That may not require much more than 6 ability scores.

So, I'm really enjoying the topic of this thread. People have made some great comments and ideas.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yet, I'm simply not that audience. Nor are most of the folks who I game with. I don't have the brain-space / time-space to master the game. Also, I have no interest in needing a laptop at the table to run the game. I'm not very computer oriented.

That's entirely reasonable. I'm just noting two things in regard to it:

1. There are absolutely people (and apparently a fair number of them) both generally among rules-light gamers and specifically among some parts of OS gamers, who clearly think there is no useful point to increased complexity, and either disregard people for whom there is, think they're kidding themselves, or think they don't matter; and

2. Sometimes the pieces of rope don't meet in the middle. A particular ancestry, class or other construct can sometimes only work or at least have any point because of fine distinctions or complexities that cannot be simplified out and still have there be a point in them.