D&D General Why Enworld should liberate D&D from Hasbro

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

This temper tantrum has been going on for three years.

This particular rift in the D&D community goes back to the Diversity and Dungeons and Dragons announcement in June of 2020, where WotC announced they were going to change D&D to be more inclusive and announced the optional rules for Tasha’s. A small but loud group of grumblers have dedicated over 5 years(!) to threadcrapping any discussion about any new D&D product since then.

There were, of course, discussions about diversity in D&D, problematic aspects of the game, the quality of 5e books/mechanics, and other similar topics before then, but that announcement is when this problem really kicked off.

 

[Zardnaar]

This particular rift in the D&D community goes back to the Diversity and Dungeons and Dragons announcement in June of 2020, where WotC announced they were going to change D&D to be more inclusive and announced the optional rules for Tasha’s. A small but loud group of grumblers have dedicated over 5 years(!) to threadcrapping any discussion about any new D&D product since then.

There were, of course, discussions about diversity in D&D, problematic aspects of the game, the quality of 5e books/mechanics, and other similar topics before then, but that announcement is when this problem really kicked off.

Tbf there's overlap with Tashas being a bit rubbish and a decline in printed product quality. And WotC themselves.

Icewind Dale onwards roughly.

 

[Lanefan]

I was thinking the Leverage RPG myself. Are you more a Grifter or Hitter type?

Dunno. Just tell me what to play and I'm on board.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Tbf there's overlap with Tashas being a bit rubbish and a decline in printed product quality. And WotC themselves.

Every time I see someone say something like this I wonder if they actually read the early non-core 5e books, like Hoard of the Dragon Queen, Rise of Tiamat, Princes of the Apocalypse, and Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide.

I would say any of those books are just as flawed as anything to come out post-Tasha’s. Pretty much every official campaign-length adventure in 5e can be described as a filled with a lot of cool, disconnected ideas that need a lot of changes to work well at the table. That’s true both before and after Tasha’s. I would choose to run Netherdeep or Witchlight over Tyranny of Dragons or Princes of the Apocalypse any day of the week. I’d recommend pretty much any other official 5e setting book over the SCAG, except probably Strixhaven.

I dunno, maybe you feel different, but in my experience in discussions like these anyone that says “D&D 5e after Tasha’s is clearly worse than it was before Tasha’s” either isn’t actually familiar with most 5e books, is viewing early 5e books with nostalgia glasses, or is saying that in place of what they actually mean (they don’t like the Tasha’s rule updates, overall shortening of lore, the new inclusion policies or something like that).

Besides the new core rulebooks, I’m pretty sure the last 5e book I bought was Fizban’s, so maybe the quality nose dived with Planescape, Book of Many Things, and Bigby’s, based on my experience with 5e books, I just straight up do not agree with this simplistic assessment of the trajectory of quality in official 5e books’. And I think any simple dichotomies like “before Tasha’s good, after Tasha’s bad” are overly simplistic and inherently suspect. Reality is rarely so simple and people that want to reduce the complexities of reality often have an ulterior motive.

 

[Zardnaar]

Every time I see someone say something like this I wonder if they actually read the early non-core 5e books, like Hoard of the Dragon Queen, Rise of Tiamat, Princes of the Apocalypse, and Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide.

I would say any of those books are just as flawed as anything to come out post-Tasha’s. Pretty much every official campaign-length adventure in 5e can be described as a filled with a lot of cool, disconnected ideas that need a lot of changes to work well at the table. That’s true both before and after Tasha’s. I would choose to run Netherdeep or Witchlight over Tyranny of Dragons or Princes of the Apocalypse any day of the week. I’d recommend pretty much any other official 5e setting book over the SCAG, except probably Strixhaven.

I dunno, maybe you feel different, but in my experience in discussions like these anyone that says “D&D 5e after Tasha’s is clearly worse than it was before Tasha’s” either isn’t actually familiar with most 5e books, is viewing early 5e books with nostalgia glasses, or is saying that in place of what they actually mean (they don’t like the Tasha’s rule updates, overall shortening of lore, the new inclusion policies or something like that).

Besides the new core rulebooks, I’m pretty sure the last 5e book I bought was Fizban’s, so maybe the quality nose dived with Planescape, Book of Many Things, and Bigby’s, based on my experience with 5e books, I just straight up do not agree with this simplistic assessment of the trajectory of quality in official 5e books’. And I think any simple dichotomies like “before Tasha’s good, after Tasha’s bad” are overly simplistic and inherently suspect. Reality is rarely so simple and people that want to reduce the complexities of reality often have an ulterior motive.

Early 5E was also crap.

It peaked around 2016-2019.

Theros, Ravnica, Eberron, Xanathars, CoS, ToA, Ghosts of Saltmarsh.

So the peak came right before Tashas landed. Then we got a book of experimental stuff a lot useless and power creep. And icewind Dale.

Very pretty books though.

 

[Corinnguard]

We're using Blades in the Dark rules for this heist, right?

If we are going to be doing this in the dark, we'll need some Gloom Stalker Rangers to stealthily enter the building. With their Umbral Sight, no one who uses Darkvision or its' fancy tech equivalent will see them.

Secondly, there are many possibilities. Options for enhanced exploration and social challenges and general play, choices in PC abilities as you level, mass combat options, narrative mechanics, shared story responsibility, more granular skill use options, alternatives for things like healing, encumbrance, food, disease & poison, crafting, and even spellcasting subsystems. Expanding equipment lists and adding culture to the species/background/class axis. Bringing back the warlord (or something like it), as well as other potential classes like the swordmage.

In other words, Level Up!

 

[Echohawk]

Pretty much every official campaign-length adventure in 5e can be described as a filled with a lot of cool, disconnected ideas that need a lot of changes to work well at the table.

Frankly, I think that's true of most of TSR/WotC's adventure output ever. There are very few official D&D adventures from any edition that I'd feel comfortable running as-is. Equally, there are adventures from every edition that are worth mining for cool ideas. I don't think that producing well-structured, easy-to-run adventures has ever been a key strength of the company in charge of the D&D brand, although there are a handful of exceptions.

 

[Staffan]

Frankly, I think that's true of most of TSR/WotC's adventure output ever. There are very few official D&D adventures from any edition that I'd feel comfortable running as-is. Equally, there are adventures from every edition that are worth mining for cool ideas. I don't think that producing well-structured, easy-to-run adventures has ever been a key strength of the company in charge of the D&D brand, although there are a handful of exceptions.

Writing detailed adventures for public consumption for any game is hard. It's super difficult to try to predict what sort of dumb stuff the PCs are going to try in any one situation. It's slightly easier for a game like D&D which has certain built-in concepts about what PCs are supposed to be capable of at various levels, but it's still tough.

For my GMing purposes I have found that one approach that works great is the "Savage Tales" format found in many Savage Worlds campaigns, where you have about two pages for an adventure that's more of an outline. To me, this is enough of a skeleton around which I can improvise the rest (though it helps that Savage Worlds, particularly East Texas University, can be run fairly rules-light) – e.g. if the PCs decide to break into a dorm room, I don't really need a full map of the room and stuff like that. But that wouldn't work for a dungeon-style adventure.

 

[pemerton]

The earliest published AD&D adventures intentionally put PCs in environments where they couldn't hack their way through. You'd need to massively outlevel the G series in order to just fight your way through.

One of the original winning tournament teams approached it pretty aggressively! I mean, they used good wargame-y tactics, but they didn't shy away from combat: as the victory report in The Dragon 19 says,

The WV group’s philosophy has always been that of slash and hack with a large dose of planning and cunning tossed in to insure our escape. Discussions with the rest of the team members revealed that this was also their approach to D&D.​

The tournament report bears out the truth of this self-description!

 

[Remathilis]

Early 5E was also crap.

It peaked around 2016-2019.

Theros, Ravnica, Eberron, Xanathars, CoS, ToA, Ghosts of Saltmarsh.

So the peak came right before Tashas landed. Then we got a book of experimental stuff a lot useless and power creep. And icewind Dale.

Very pretty books though.

It's pretty amazing that 5e was the best selling edition, let alone RPG, when it only has four years of good books. And in that era theme is still Tome of Foes and the Waterdeep modules.