D&D (2024) You're not planning on getting 2024 D&D? Why is that?

[jmartkdr2]

Other: I see no reason to bother. I don’t actively dislike any of the changes so none of the “concerns” bother me, but there aren’t any positive reasons to spend any money on it.

 

[Quickleaf]

I'll probably break this down further in a week or two, but so far here's what I am observing...

We know that about half of previous survey-responding ENWorlders want to get 2024 D&D, and about 1/3rd do not want to get 2024 D&D. I want to be clear that I'm not discounting the folks voting "I'm getting 2024 D&D" – that's just not the focus of this poll. Also, not discounting folks voting "I'm happy with 1e/2e/3e/4e/BXMI", they just probably were not in market for 2024 D&D.

If you consider that ~6,000 folks viewed that previous thread and only 172 voted... well, it's hard to know how many viewers are members or guests... but the point is that we're looking at a niche (survey-responders) of a niche (ENWorlders). Polls on ENWorld might get up to 300 or so respondents (sometimes less, sometimes more), but compare that to polls on YouTube or Reddit with 3,000 respondents, and it's clear we're a niche here.

So I'm not making any assumptions about overall gaming community. Just folks on ENWorld who are actively engaged on the forums and caring to vote.

Also, the way multiple-choice polls work here, I don't get to see the total number of voters, so I'll have to work that out in a spreadsheet later on. Edit: Though 1/3 of 172 previous respondents would be about 57.

The top 3 concerns so far are:
1) Concerns about the practices of WotC/Hasbro (41.8%) - there seems to be a roughly even split between folks for whom this is a "poison pill" issue, and others for whom this is a "tipping the balance" issue.
2) Power creep for PCs (22.4%)
3) Looks harder / more frustrating to GM (21.2%) - there's a fair amount of overlap of folks who voted both for "power creep for PCs" and "looks hard / more frustrating to GM."

There are a bunch of "Other"/write-in answers (24.2%) too. I'll have to sort through patterns more, but the one that jumped out to me was: I'm happy with 2014 D&D, and don't see a need for 2024 which is alternately described as "glorified errata" or a "different game."

We also can see that many of the survey responders (48.5%) have already moved on to other RPGs, predominantly completely different ones but also including variants of 5e, and are content there.

 

[Stoutstien]

At this point if I want a good long-term campaign DND system I'll use WWN and if I need something for short campaigns or just to play with low effort 5e offers that now without much work.

 

[cbwjm]

Really? That's interesting. I guess I was thinking of characters and their abilities--skills instead of roleplaying, bonus actions, reactions...it's all mechanical instead of (I will use a loaded word) creative.
Here's an example: in 5e, you just roll Persuasion instead of having to role-play being persuasive and having the GM decide if you were successful or not. That's a rule (persuasion as a skill) vs. a ruling (you convinced the hobgoblin...)

That sounds like a problem with the DM. They should be the ones asking for the roll. If a player says "can I roll persuasion?" The DM should be asking them how they're trying to persuade them, what are they saying, is it something in their favour (granting advantage) or is it a set back (disadvantage). Maybe it's something that the DM rules works or fails without a roll.

 

[Maxperson]

This is the point i disagree with many gms and the DMG. Failing forward, partial successes, degrees of success, and all those concepts are just unnecessary noise that hurt the game and conflict with an eloquent process.

The GM should always know what failure means before rolling. If they don't know that there no reasonable reason for the check to occur. The dice are meant to be a neutral method to decide an outcome not a tool to inject randomness to the world for the sake of it.

This means that failure needs to be defined at the same time as determining if the roll is needed and the DC after adjusting for situational modifiers.

Where WoTC shat the bed is they gloss over the vast range of possibilities when your talking about failure. If you ask most GMs what failing means they talk about roll results rather than anything else.

I disagree with this.

If someone is climbing a cliff on a rope, failure could mean falling a bit and being caught by the rope, the rope coming undone, the rope breaking which leaves them stuck on the cliff face without a rope, cutting themselves for damage and bleeding on a sharp rock, and much more.

In my opinion, the DM shouldn't shoehorn himself into the rope breaking before the die is rolled. How badly the PC performed the check can inform the DM of how bad the failure should be.

The DM should know that failure is possible or there is no reasonable reason for the check to occur, but you don't need to know what that failure will be before a check is reasonable. You just need the outcome to be in doubt and failure to have meaning.

 

[Maxperson]

They did in 4e, pretty definitively. The errata was practically it's own sourcebook.

Yeah, but they also had that "everything is core" nonsense. They made everything the put out or changed into an official rule. No other edition has done that.

 

[Maxperson]

You said you were concerned about the whims of a DM making unfair to players, and that a roll is fair. So...?

Closer, but also not what I said. What I said was that if the outcome is in doubt, so success and failure are both possibilities, the DMs whim is unfair.

The DM deciding that there is no doubt is part of the game. Rolling only happens when the PC might or might not succeed at something, and social has just as much of a chance of that happening as a climb check or athletics check.

 

[GothmogIV]

Closer, but also not what I said. What I said was that if the outcome is in doubt, so success and failure are both possibilities, the DMs whim is unfair.

The DM deciding that there is no doubt is part of the game. Rolling only happens when the PC might or might not succeed at something, and social has just as much of a chance of that happening as a climb check or athletics check.

I get you, bro.

 

[Stoutstien]

I disagree with this.

If someone is climbing a cliff on a rope, failure could mean falling a bit and being caught by the rope, the rope coming undone, the rope breaking which leaves them stuck on the cliff face without a rope, cutting themselves for damage and bleeding on a sharp rock, and much more.

In my opinion, the DM shouldn't shoehorn himself into the rope breaking before the die is rolled. How badly the PC performed the check can inform the DM of how bad the failure should be.

The DM should know that failure is possible or there is no reasonable reason for the check to occur, but you don't need to know what that failure will be before a check is reasonable. You just need the outcome to be in doubt and failure to have meaning.

That turns the ability check into a date check at best or makes the PC incompetent at worse. Dice don't GM.


Because we Don't have the context of the rope climb we can't assign what failure means. That contextual content is everything because it also determines success. Maybe failure is just they didn't do it silently or it takes twice as long. The base rope climb doesn't take a roll so why does this onehave one? I give you a hint
Random gear failing isn't one of them with them being aware before hand.

Also single die resolution suck at degree of success/failure. It's a flat distribution so it frequency suck agency and immersion. There almost zero benefit to waiting to after the roll seeing how you have determine if a meaningful failure is even there at all

 

[Maxperson]

That turns the ability check into a date check at best or makes the PC incompetent at worse.

Funny how that's never happened in any game that I've run that had ability checks or skills.

Dice don't GM.

This is true. Ability checks =/= DM.

Because we Don't have the context of the rope climb we can't assign what failure means. That contextual content is everything because it also determines success. Maybe failure is just they didn't do it silently or it takes twice as long. The base rope climb doesn't take a roll so why does this onehave one? I give you a hint
Random gear failing isn't one of them with them being aware before hand.

You're ignoring the point to focus up climbing with a rope. That wasn't the point at all. And sure, failure could also be that they didn't do it quietly enough. As I said, there are many possibilities that can fit the context.

Also single die resolution suck at degree of success/failure. It's a flat distribution so it frequency suck agency and immersion. There almost zero benefit to waiting to after the roll seeing how you have determine if a meaningful failure is even there at all

Um, I said that you only roll if the outcome is in doubt and failure is meaningful. You have to know both of those things BEFORE THE ROLL in order to determine if a roll is needed. So I'm not sure why you are talking about determining it after seeing the roll. What I think you are missing is that you don't need to know the specifics of the failure in order to know if failure has meaning or not.