D&D General Why Editions Don't Matter

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah…

"I don't like leeks."

"Do you have a consensus of people who feel that way? If not, you are invalid."

If I’d made a statement equivalent to the second, or if you’d made a statement equivalent to the first, you’d have a point.

You made an objective statement that could only be true as stated if there were at least a sizable portion of the user base that agrees with it. If by far most players don’t feel the game is incomplete, then your snide remark about wizards “making excuses” to not complete the game is unwarranted, at best.

They aren’t failing do something other publishes “manage to do”. They’re designing the most successful TTRPG ever published according to what the majority of the base wants from the game, and that happens not to sync with what you want.

That’s it.

 

[CleverNickName]

But...but people keep playing it wrong!

 

[Vaalingrade]

I think the vast majority of people who play the game would disagree.

Now someone has made a quantitative claim. demand comprehensive studies and proof from them.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Whereas I have less than a single page. Same with most games I play. I can't imagine playing a game that had 150 pages of modifications or how anyone would keep track of everything.

I'm glad it works for you but you have exponentially more house rules than anyone I've ever encountered in real life.

Yeah I think I have like…3 houserules? Few enough I don’t bother writing them down, we all just know them.

I do a decent amount of homebrew for stuff like races I want to use that either aren’t published or I dislike the implementation of, and I make custom magic items, spells, feats, adventuring gear, and subclasses, but none of that speaks to an incomplete game in any way. It’s just stuff I’m more into than the average DM.

 

[payn]

Now someone has made a quantitative claim. demand comprehensive studies and proof from them.

I've been told (by others) personal experience is enough

 

[Vaalingrade]

I've been told (by others) personal experience is enough

Only if it's personal experience that agrees.

Otherwise, you better have a Getty poll to back you up.

 

[Charlaquin]

Now someone has made a quantitative claim. demand comprehensive studies and proof from them.

Ok, a significant portion of the playerbase.

 

[gorice]

I would submit that 5e as written absolutely is incomplete, to the extent that it's actually unplayable. There is no group that plays it and does not join to dots with houserules. The trick is, this isn't obvious from a player's perspective. It's the DM-facing part of the game that is incomplete.

For example: under what circumstances do I, as DM, frame a new scene? How 'hard' can I frame it, and what do I take into account when doing so? This is really basic stuff you can't play the game without, and the rules don't, as far as I can tell, really say anything about it.

Then there's stuff like the entire exploration 'pillar', including travel, weather, wandering monsters, etc. These things 'exist' in the game text, but there are no clear procedures for actually bringing them into play.

 

[Oofta]

Yeah I think I have like…3 houserules? Few enough I don’t bother writing them down, we all just know them.

I do a decent amount of homebrew for stuff like races I want to use that either aren’t published or I dislike the implementation of, and I make custom magic items, spells, feats, adventuring gear, and subclasses, but none of that speaks to an incomplete game in any way. It’s just stuff I’m more into than the average DM.

Yeah, I have a ton of history, lore and background information in a wiki that I've built up over the years. But it's information on things like Alfheim is ruled by the Sidhe and is the equivalent of the feywild. That's not house rules, just stating that I don't follow standard default cosmology.

Which doesn't make what @DND_Reborn wrong if it works for them, but if I added up all the house rules I've ever seen anyone use I doubt I'd come up with 15 pages, much less 150.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I took the point of the video to be that the stakes of a new edition of dnd, or in discussing the relative merits of any edition over others (i.e. edition warring) are very low. For instance, I see people all the time discussing which retroclone or OSR game will be the key that unlocks proper "old school" play, and I feel that it doesn't really matter. Or rather, if you are aligned with your table in terms of what kind of game you want, you'll end up making slight modifications to any game to match your style, and this is relatively easy to do.

I mean ... why are the edition fights in D&D so vicious?

Because the stakes are so low.

C'mon. You wanna like One Edition? One Direction? One Bard to RULE THEM ALL? SPLITTER!!!