WotC WotC needs an Elon Musk

[Micah Sweet]

D&D abandoned primarily focusing on that style of games and became the most popular rpg ever. Seems like a good decision to me.

The people who get to decide if a play style is "objectively better" or not are the players who buy the game. And the players have spoken in resounding numbers that 5e is a success. I am sorry but a strategy of abandoning 5e and going back to to focusing of the playstyle popular in the 80s, that helped bankrupt TSR, by the way, is not a winning strategy.

Luckily WotC is not the only company making rpgs. There is the OSR, an entire movement of game designers focusing on the style of game you enjoy.

I assume you meant that for me, as @Remathilis is I think on your side here. If D&D wants to be for everyone, they can't ignore players who prefer less popular options.

 

[Nikosandros]

D&D abandoned primarily focusing on that style of games and became the most popular rpg ever. Seems like a good decision to me.

The people who get to decide if a play style is "objectively better" or not are the players who buy the game. And the players have spoken in resounding numbers that 5e is a success. I am sorry but a strategy of abandoning 5e and going back to to focusing of the playstyle popular in the 80s, that helped bankrupt TSR, by the way, is not a winning strategy.

Luckily WotC is not the only company making rpgs. There is the OSR, an entire movement of game designers focusing on the style of game you enjoy.

Not arguing that 5e is the most popular edition ever, but the style we're discussing here was in the early 80s and TSR was quite successful back then.

 

[Clint_L]

The killer game isn't inherently better or worse, but it was never particularly popular. It would make no sense to continue to push killer dungeons as the default when it's not what the vast majority of people don't want. I don't think the majority of people ever wanted it from my experience.

This reminds me of the debate that was happening in the Warcraft communities in the late 2000s, during Rise of the Lich King. A vocal minority were loudly crying out that the game had gotten too easy and needed to go back to being more challenging. And the designers listened and cranked the difficulty up for Cataclysm, helping to trigger a precipitous decline in the game's popularity.

One difference here is that although the rules have become more forgiving, the difficulty of 5e is really up to the DM. Want proof that it is not a problem to create a devastatingly difficult game out of it?: Battles have gone badly before in Dimension 20, but not like this

The other is that you can still easily access those earlier versions of D&D any time you like. A lot of these criticisms about the game being too easy, not focused on the dungeon enough, etc. are coming from folks who aren't even playing 5e. Which is massively more popular than any previous version of the game. So why would WotC want to change the game to suit the tastes of a small sub-set of players who probably aren't going to buy it anyway?

 

[codo]

I assume you meant that for me, as @Remathilis is I think on your side here. If D&D wants to be for everyone, they can't ignore players who prefer less popular options.

I'm sorry but you can't make a game that literally appeals to everyone. People have different play styles, many of them mutually exclusive. You can't make one game be every thing to everyone.

You can't expect that just because a game designer claimed that wanted to design for everyone, that the game will literally support every play style possible., and if the game doesn't completely support a certain playstyle than the designers lied to you. I mean I guess you can expect that, but if you do you can't expect people to take you seriously.

 

[Oofta]

This reminds me of the debate that was happening in the Warcraft communities in the late 2000s, during Rise of the Lich King. A vocal minority were loudly crying out that the game had gotten too easy and needed to go back to being more challenging. And the designers listened and cranked the difficulty up for Cataclysm, helping to trigger a precipitous decline in the game's popularity.

One difference here is that although the rules have become more forgiving, the difficulty of 5e is really up to the DM. Want proof that it is not a problem to create a devastatingly difficult game out of it?: Battles have gone badly before in Dimension 20, but not like this

The other is that you can still easily access those earlier versions of D&D any time you like. A lot of these criticisms about the game being too easy, not focused on the dungeon enough, etc. are coming from folks who aren't even playing 5e. Which is massively more popular than any previous version of the game. So why would WotC want to change the game to suit the tastes of a small sub-set of players who probably aren't going to buy it anyway?

I had an encounter in my last game that was, according to the rules a medium. But I came close to killing a couple of PCs and probably would have if I had been playing just a bit more intelligently. The PCs were level 17, fighting an adult red dracolich (that had been effectively possessed, hence a bit of poor tactics) with his iron golem buddy. The dracolich flew around, doing it's best to avoid melee fighters while the golem kept them busy as well.

However, I could have made it much worse. The iron golem heals if hit by fire for the points that would have damaged it, but I didn't do that. The dracolich could have easily just grabbed one of the PCs, flown straight up out of range of most people and dropped the person. I had just given the strength based fighter a legendary item that let them make all their melee attacks at range and then stayed within range. I didn't give the dracolich lair actions, although it would have made sense to do so.

By the end of the fight one PC had been knocked unconscious and most were severely injured. In a medium difficulty fight. If 5E isn't dangerous for the PCs, it's not the fault of the game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm sorry but you can't make a game that literally appeals to everyone. People have different play styles, many of them mutually exclusive. You can't make one game be every thing to everyone.

You can't expect that just because a game designer claimed that wanted to design for everyone, that the game will literally support every play style possible., and if the game doesn't completely support a certain playstyle than the designers lied to you. I mean I guess you can expect that, but if you do you can't expect people to take you seriously.

I think it can be more than what it is now, and a lot more than what they seem to be trying to drift it into. Claiming I want it to be literally everything is disingenuous.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I had an encounter in my last game that was, according to the rules a medium. But I came close to killing a couple of PCs and probably would have if I had been playing just a bit more intelligently. The PCs were level 17, fighting an adult red dracolich (that had been effectively possessed, hence a bit of poor tactics) with his iron golem buddy. The dracolich flew around, doing it's best to avoid melee fighters while the golem kept them busy as well.

However, I could have made it much worse. The iron golem heals if hit by fire for the points that would have damaged it, but I didn't do that. The dracolich could have easily just grabbed one of the PCs, flown straight up out of range of most people and dropped the person. I had just given the strength based fighter a legendary item that let them make all their melee attacks at range and then stayed within range. I didn't give the dracolich lair actions, although it would have made sense to do so.

By the end of the fight one PC had been knocked unconscious and most were severely injured. In a medium difficulty fight. If 5E isn't dangerous for the PCs, it's not the fault of the game.

By that argument, WotC assumes DMs won't play smart. What a sad state of affairs you're positing here.

 

[codo]

I think it can be more than what it is now, and a lot more than what they seem to be trying to drift it into. Claiming I want it to be literally everything is disingenuous.

They could make a game more like you want, but doing so would make a game that would be less popular with the majority of their current audience. I understand you want WotC to support your play style. It is validating when the majority of the people agree with you, but this is just not going to happen.

I constantly see you in almost every thread I look at , demanding over and over again that WotC should personally support your playstyle, over the current, more popular playstyle. I am sorry but they are never going to abandon their currant customer base to refocus on you and what you want. You can keep banging your head against that wall if you want, but it is not going to make a difference. D&D is the largest RPG ever, and they are going to focus on the most popular playstyle, that appeals to the largest number of people.

 

[Oofta]

By that argument, WotC assumes DMs won't play smart. What a sad state of affairs you're positing here.

Huh? Most people say D&D isn't deadly enough, and the only reason I didn't have 1 or more PC deaths with a medium encounter is because the possessed dracolich didn't use particularly good tactics. You seem to have completely, totally, missed the point.

D&D 5E is as deadly as the DM wants it to be, no house rules required*. In my case, and knowing my player's tactical acumen, it would have been easy to kill one or more of them. If I had upped the difficulty of the encounter slightly or potentially even decided to use lair actions I likely would have been risking a TPK. I didn't do that because we prefer a lower risk of death.

If I had used better tactics I would have killed 1 or more PCs in game that many people label as "D&D on easy mode" with a medium encounter. One that was, by the way, the second encounter of the day.

*With the exception of the custom items and house rules that helped the group no house rules were involved.

 

[Remathilis]

It did survive; it was just quickly joined by other styles. You folks are acting like 1e style play just died decades ago.

It did. Name a TSR or WotC product that promoted that style of play made after 1985.

And I'm a little surprised that, for all your professed love of lore, you fall into the "random dungeons, zero plot" style of play. The great metaplots of D&D were designed for your PCs to experience; the War of the Lance, the Great Cataclysm, the Time of Troubles, etc. It's not like the Caves of Chaos was known for its tremendous lore and detailed plot; it's known as the meat grinder you toss 1st level PCs at until enough of them stick and level up enough to earn actual names.