This thread is more or less a spin off from the "Most players prefer no feats thread".
In another thread that Mistwell started he is speculating about feats and if they are really needed. A few yeara ago (circa 3E) I noticed a disconnect between how we were playing D&D and how other groups were. My games had a lot of source books, other games had the core books and maybe 1-2 splats and a pre published adventure. Back then the "hivemind" was things like ENworld and the WoTC forums.
The disconnect between the hivemind and the way most players play D&D also explains a few things such as 4E tanking like it did and why did so many player migrate to Pathfinder when the hivemind basically knew 3.5 was a broken mess.
The disconnect explains a lot.
A lot of the disconnect is also came about how the game evolved. IN the various edition changes generally late edition material is incorporated into the following edition. It kind of happens slowly if you are on the ground but if you read 3E or 4E and compare it to OD&D you notice how big the gulf is. Material from the OD&D book IV-VII was incorporated into 1E, UA was incorporated into 2E and things from 2E splat such as the Players Option books was refined into 3E and late 3E books like Book of Nine Swords and Races of the Dragon made it into 4E.
And one can also see the growth in size of the RPG books as a result and while the 4E and 3E books were similar in size they also left out 5/11 classes form the 3.5 PHB which if included would have added another 60-75 pages to the 4E PHB. The 5E PHB has a lot of subclasses (good value for money) but it is similar in size to the BECMI Rules Cyclopedia. The point of this is not to claim BECMI is better than 5E more to illustrate the changes that D&D has had over the years. A stripped down "simple" version is still almost triple the size of the RC when you add in the MM and DMG and the RC gives you an additional 18 levels to play with (that you will probably never actually use).
So why would the hivemind players on the other thread out right deny that Crawford is telling the truth with his statements. Generally people IRL do not like being told what to do or even worse they are wrong. This can apply even when they are being paid to do something- everyone hates there boss
. If you played older D&D you will know that feats are not actually required to have fun and 5E made them optional. Feats add complexity and not everything is actual progress. For example a BECMI Rogue has a d4 hit dice along with the wizard and the 5E ones have a d6 and d8 it looks like a great improvement until you realise 5E monsters deal double the damage. 5E has more generous healing obviously but its monsters are also a lot more powerful.
Basically the hivemind tends to lean heavily towards the one true way and forum posters are usually veterans of an edition or 2 (or 5 or 6 in some cases) and if you are under the age of 30 you probably never played TSR era D&D so feats are part of that one true way mentality. According to the hivemind 3.5 was a broken mess and everyone was using wands of cure light wounds and had access to all these combos and the knowledge to use them. Our group could do that most groups I saw never made it to the high levels, did not have the 1st 4 completre books let alkone the Complete Gnome Cobblers books and as late as 2014 I saw Pathfinder players playing Pathfinder more like a complicated 2E rather than the hiveminds assumption of how 3.5 should be played online.
Note this is just my opinion but it explains a lot. For example ask yourselves these questions and think about them objectively.
1. Why did so many players stick with 3.5 and then Pathfinder if the game is so broken? Probably because they were not playing it optimally like the hivemind assumed and they were not seeing CoDzilla dominating and the Druid doesn't seem to be that popular anyway in any edition of D&D- even in AD&D reading old Dragons.
2. Why did people not embrace 4E? Probably because they did not have major problems with 3.5 the hivemind did and the D&D Tactics: With Minatures the JRPG solution cure was worse than the disease.
3. Why did 5E put so much effort into the classic 4 races and classes? Probably because they are the most popular ones more or less backed up by all of the data we have.
4. Why can't you buy magic items in 5E? Probably because it creates new problems, combos and headaches along with complexity. One thing TSR D&D got right IMHO.
Feats just add complexity to the game, create power problems worse than ASI and a few are either better than the others or create other problems/trivialise aspects of 5E so some players may prefer to play without them. The worst offenders IMHO are Great Weapon Master, Healer, Resilient (con), Sharpshooter, Warcaster. The -5/+10 feats are obvious, healer trivialises things at low level making the wonky CR system basically collapse while Warcaster and Resilient con mitigate the concentration mechanic a bit to well. If you reduce options the DMs life gets easier, happy DM happy group generally, and it makes most published adventures (which have never really been that hard with a few exceptions) function a bit smoother.
When 5E came out we pushed the hell out of the system just because we could, most of the killer combos were known about before 2014 finished. Our group of uber powerful PCs?
4d6 drop the lowest
LG Paladin of Apollo (Oath of Devotion, Thyatian think Roman)
Wood Elf Arcane Cleric of Isis
Halfling Thief (20 dex level 4 Weapon Specialisation feat)
Human Hexblade
The only thing missing is a Dwarf, in this game the players definitely choose a back to basics group almost. Shortsword using fighter, AD&D type Paladin, classic thief and of course Mr Snowflake had to pick a hexblade (there is always 1). Not the most combat heavy party, the 5E encounter guidelines were also useful for once. I'm sure we are playing wrong according to the hivemind but eh. Now where did I put my random harlot table.......
1. I don’t believe most people felt 3.5e was broken. There were certainly plenty of overpowered options, but those were easy to house rule out.
I think that it was a business decision because the splatbook approach can only be taken so far. You can only add so many new classes, races, and rules. In addition, it gets more complicated to add more as time goes on since each one adds additional complexity.
2e and 3e were both very successful in promoting the brand, bringing in lots of sales, and providing a platform for new releases for years to come. But that sales arc is usually on a downward trend after so many years. So it seems obvious that a new edition is due.
They were also created and developed for different reasons. 2e was designed to reign in the sprawl of rules, many contradictory. TSR, initially being a game designer, designed a new system for each game they released. The Basic Set has been through several revisions, and I think they realized that they weren’t a game design company, they were a book company. The novels probably helped this.
3e, on the other hand, was designed by a new company, with a fresh view, and learned a lot from other RPGs since the entire hobby had. Although TSR has recognized opportunities to streamline mechanics, WoTC recognized that certain sacred cows that TSR set as off-limits for 2e weren’t essential to the game’s identity. That allowed them to eliminate things like negative AC and a mix of different dice for resolution, ranging from 2d6 (2d10 in 2e?) for initiative, to percentile dice for thieves’ abilities, to rolling low on a d20 for some things and high for others. In the end, it changed the mechanics, but for the most part not the underlying math.
While it might seem, when browsing the online forums, that many thought 3e was broken, that is a very small sample size. Clearly there was at least an equal number that felt it wasn’t broken.
This relates to point #2. The people that were complaining were the ones that fed the needs of those at WoTC, who once again were game designers. That’s important, because game designers design games, which is exaclty what they did. They essentially designed 4e as a new game as “they would have designed it” and said as much in their reasoning behind altering the lore of things like the races and designing a generic D&D setting as the base (theoretically for all D&D games), and then force fitting much of that lore into existing settings.
2. If you were to ask me why I think that many players who rejected 4e did, it’s because it was virtually impossible to bring existing characters and an existing campaign forward.
Through 3.5e, the basic class structure remained the same, and they just added abilities on top of that. It was easy to convert from prior editions, and the fundamental rules remained the same.
4e took a very different approach (or seemingly so). The math behind the game was significantly different. The play style is very different.
That’s not to say that people couldn’t try to play it in an earlier style, but it was very difficult. I tend to make every edition into my version of AD&D because that’s what I know. In 3e, I could still run the game the same way with some modifications and tweaks. I liked the simplification and streamlining of mechanics.
I tried 4e with around 3 different groups. In the end each one decided the same thing - why are we trying to learn this new system that’s getting in the way of what we want to do, which is play D&D.
From a game design standpoint, I think it was really well done. But instead of playing the same game we had been and working in the new rules we liked, it was an all or nothing thing. Or at least seemed that way. The way I he mechanics interacted with the setting and the things that happened within that setting was very different.
We play a gritty, ordinary characters in extraordinary circumstances types of games. 4e was designed for superheroes. That every character has extraordinary abilities that sets them above the rest of the world.
And we were more interested in playing our existing characters and campaign than learning a new game.
I think it fared better with new players, but it catered to those that like a more complex system with lots of choices and that rewarded the “character build” mentality in the same way the MTG rewards deck-building.
3. I think 5e was designed the way it was is because they recognized that they had misunderstood what D&D is. That is, what makes it D&D and not something else.
What I think was missing in 4e was a focus on exploration. Exploration of setting, exploration of characters, etc.
In addition, they had access, via the internet among other places, to lots of information about why players still played other editions. They didn’t look back to just 3.5e to do a 4e-take 2. Instead they went back to the beginning. Naturally, the “core” races and classes start with those that have been around the longest.
The other thing that I think they recognized was that many people prefer a simpler game with fewer restrictions, and that one hallmark of D&as is its flexibility. That you’d be hard pressed to find two games that are run exactly the same.
The trick, which I think they largely succeeded at, was to make any player, coming from any edition, feel like the design team felt their prior favorite edition was the most important. That it was an extension of 2e if you didn’t really care for 3e. This was probably less successful in regards to those who love 4e, but all of the players I know personally who started with 4e think that 5e is much better, and really kind of what they expected D&D to be.
4. This is a myth. The DMG has rules for buying/selling magic items, although they sort of recommend against it. What they haven’t done is provided a systemized approach to it, but the designers have also repeatedly stated that 5e is also intended to work with earlier material. So if you want to use the 3e or 2e approaches, that’s fine. They have prices listed and the shops in your campaign don’t have to close. The 4e approach, however, might be difficult to implement.
