5e - why you think it sucks, and why you're wrong
- Thread starter DangerousPuhson
- Start date
Probably if you split the difference its going to be something like VtM > D&D 5e (OC culture) > OSR > D20/Pathfinder/Crunch Heavy old shit. There's all sorts of speculation to be done about how well the different video game genres map to different rpgs but the point is there's a case to be made that its different. Competition can be with other players, but you can be competitive against the GM, or competetive with other players in the same team, probably a moderate amount of competition is the ideal, where players push eachother to do better but the competitive drive is restricted towards the enemy and does not bleed over into party conflict.
It's all a question of motivation (and also where do you find all these people?). Do I want my Orcs to be rapey because it makes the most sense in the context of my game or do I want them to be rapey because I like rape?
DP, wherever you are, if you are reading this, SUCK IT DOWN CHUMP.
Beoric
8, 8, I forget what is for
When you get in serious conversations/arguments in the anonymous environment of the internet, people will tell you who they are. Even if they don't mean to. And I am predisposed to get into serious conversations/arguments.
squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
A list of some objections to 5e design:
bxblackrazor.blogspot.com
The Stupid Of 5E
So in an attempt to "lighten the mood" (blogger just deleted a rather long comment I was scribbling re the conflict in Ukraine...I'll take t...
bxblackrazor.blogspot.com
Beoric
8, 8, I forget what is for
His comments on the game economy are bang on, which is probably not surprising since the original conception of the game has money being essentially irrelevant. Values for magic items weren't in the original game, but a rough system was bolted on later.A list of some objections to 5e design:
The Stupid Of 5E
So in an attempt to "lighten the mood" (blogger just deleted a rather long comment I was scribbling re the conflict in Ukraine...I'll take t...
Just about everything else he says is purely subjective, and some some of it appears to reflect a misunderstanding of the system. My understanding (from reading, not play) of the reason for the difference in experience between 10th and 11th, and 11th and 12th, is that the design gives you a big power bump at 11th, and so requires more experience to get there, whereas there is a very small increase in power at 12th, so it rates less experience to get there.
I'm also not that sure about his argument regarding reach, because I couldn't find the rule he was talking about. What I did see, and my experience from 4e, suggests that a monster with 10' reach can hit you from 10' away, and you can't hit him with a non-reach weapon - unless you take the extraordinary maneuver of taking a couple of steps forward first. But if there is something intervening, like other characters, you are out of luck. This lets a long armed creature (which according to the 5e rules does NOT include a troll) hit the back row of the party, and the back row can't hit the monster unless they have a ranged or reach weapons.
As one of the commenters pointed out, he was whining about the power of Hellish Rebuke, which he thought was useable at will, when it was in fact useable once per day. He hasn't exactly done his homework. Which is fairly typical of any comments he ever has on any late edition D&D; he is as objective as a staffer at a political convention.
Yora
Should be playing D&D instead
I am currently contemplating running another 5th edition campaign because... (*sigh*) I want to run Forgotten Realms! (1987 style, though.)
I am absolutely not going to touch AD&D (with a ten foot pole), and when my options are 3rd, 4th, and 5th edition, this is actually an easy choice.
But I feel that it's important to go into this with 5th edition not being a substitute for B/X if you just run it right, but being the game that it is.
I am absolutely not going to touch AD&D (with a ten foot pole), and when my options are 3rd, 4th, and 5th edition, this is actually an easy choice.
But I feel that it's important to go into this with 5th edition not being a substitute for B/X if you just run it right, but being the game that it is.
Maynard
*eyeroll*
I think that's right, 5th ed has legitimate strengths you can lean into. The rules create a lot of potential for player agency and expression. Player directed play is more accessible, because I've found 5th ed players get a lot more invested in character motivations because of the high level of customizability and the relative security of a character that doesn't die at 0 HP.
Combat can be more complicated and exciting, turns take a bit longer, but that just means more spotlight for the players who want it. I've found this is a good recipe for low player games. Anything more than 4 and things resolve very slowly. Because of the HP bloat and complicated stat blocks set piece battles aren't very easy to resolve, better to group things into swarm like units so there aren't more than 3-4 stat blocks in play at once.
Yora
Should be playing D&D instead
It depends on what you're looking for. 5th edition won't emulate AD&D of course, no matter how hard you'd try to make it.
But for running an AD&D campaign setting, I am not seeing any issue. Limit the classes and races selections to those that are available in AD&D and things should be fine. The fiction of the setting doesn't care if spellcasters have unlimited cantrips or not
Beoric
8, 8, I forget what is for
Ok, but what is wrong with running it in B/X? It's pretty close to 1e, and I understand that you prefer it.
Beoric
8, 8, I forget what is for
Well, to be clear, he may have a valid reason to think 5e is better for circa 1987 Forgotten Realms. I'm just curious to know what it is.
Yora
Should be playing D&D instead
Druids, rangers, paladins, and the greatly expanded spell selection primarily. But there's also a big range of iconic AD&D monsters that you'd have to convert.
You could do all of that in B/X with custom made content, and using OSE Advanced would get you a good bit along the way. But 5th edition has all these things straight out of the box. And I am quite looking forward to running a campaign where I don't have to create a lot of custom content first for a change.
The main things I like about B/X are the dungeon and wilderness exploration system with their resource management for long expeditions with big supply trains of NPCs and pack animals. While of course you can play such a campaign in Forgotten Realms, that doesn't seem like the main draw of that setting to me. When this setting came out, we were already years post-
Dragonlance.
5th edition is a game I don't love or am excited about, but it's a game I don't hate. In my previous campaign I discovered that my usual style of aiming for players to get a new level every 4 games was much to fast, but that's easily adressed by reducing XP to 2/3 or 1/2 of normal and otherwise just continuing like I normally do.
5th edition is fine. It's a game I am comfortable with running, and that lots of people who would want to play a Forgotten Realms campaign already know. I expect it to perform the job, and it's convenient to use.
You could do all of that in B/X with custom made content, and using OSE Advanced would get you a good bit along the way. But 5th edition has all these things straight out of the box. And I am quite looking forward to running a campaign where I don't have to create a lot of custom content first for a change.
The main things I like about B/X are the dungeon and wilderness exploration system with their resource management for long expeditions with big supply trains of NPCs and pack animals. While of course you can play such a campaign in Forgotten Realms, that doesn't seem like the main draw of that setting to me. When this setting came out, we were already years post-
Dragonlance.
5th edition is a game I don't love or am excited about, but it's a game I don't hate. In my previous campaign I discovered that my usual style of aiming for players to get a new level every 4 games was much to fast, but that's easily adressed by reducing XP to 2/3 or 1/2 of normal and otherwise just continuing like I normally do.
5th edition is fine. It's a game I am comfortable with running, and that lots of people who would want to play a Forgotten Realms campaign already know. I expect it to perform the job, and it's convenient to use.
squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
I get from your (Yora's) post that you don't want to write campaign content and that's why Forgotten Realms. I will nevertheless say that, for a long term campaign, authoring your own material is essential. Some of the drudgery of doing that may be trying to keep it all consistent and on-song.
I suggest NOT keeping it all consistent. It should be a smorgasbord of pastiche. Who wants to dine out at the same restaurant every night? How much more engaging it is to have Thai one night, Italian the next, Greek after that, and so on. Mix it up with small local pockets of consistent material, but a jumbled smash-up overall with maybe a just a few interesting threads that keep re-appearing. Let your player's actions in that Disney theme-park of attractions forge their own story. That's the OD&D way.
Also, I do sincerely wonder if there were many long-term campaigns in Forgotten Realms, as that style of play had begun to disappear in the mid-80's. High fantasy, DM railroads, and imagined backstory-galore took over in the 2e era. None of that is really conductive to campaign play.
Blackmoor, Greyhawk: yes. FR: I doubt it (too scripted?).
I suggest NOT keeping it all consistent. It should be a smorgasbord of pastiche. Who wants to dine out at the same restaurant every night? How much more engaging it is to have Thai one night, Italian the next, Greek after that, and so on. Mix it up with small local pockets of consistent material, but a jumbled smash-up overall with maybe a just a few interesting threads that keep re-appearing. Let your player's actions in that Disney theme-park of attractions forge their own story. That's the OD&D way.
Also, I do sincerely wonder if there were many long-term campaigns in Forgotten Realms, as that style of play had begun to disappear in the mid-80's. High fantasy, DM railroads, and imagined backstory-galore took over in the 2e era. None of that is really conductive to campaign play.
Blackmoor, Greyhawk: yes. FR: I doubt it (too scripted?).
Yora
Should be playing D&D instead
Yes. The sources I am currently working with are the Campaign Set (1987), Dreams of the Red Wizards (1988), The Bloodstone Lands (1989), Spellbound (1995), and Unapproachable East (2003). None of which have any dungeons or adventures in them. What I really like about 1st edition Forgotten Realms is how it does a really good job to inspire adventures and hasn't the giant bloat of detailed minutia of later editions that actually gets in the way of having fun adventures that stay consistent with the sources.
But what I mean specifically is that I can use character classes, spells, and monsters straight out of the 5th edition books and they already match the established archetypes of the setting.
But what I mean specifically is that I can use character classes, spells, and monsters straight out of the 5th edition books and they already match the established archetypes of the setting.
robertsconley
*eyeroll*
Having run campaigns within the last five years using my Majestic Fantasy rules (based on OD&D in the form of Swords & Wizardry) and D&D 5e. The interplay of the numbers makes the system functions more like OD&D than it does AD&D. AD&D 1e core only power curve is biased in favor of the PCs compared to OD&D. Monster gains a marginal bump while PCs a major boost in what they can do and how they are defined (die rolled for hit points, attribute bonus, etc.).
I can swap the 5e stats for my OD&D stats and it will just work. More importantly, I have done this multiple times. The major difference is that I can run an adventure like Scourge of the Demon Wolf with a little time to spare in a four-hour convention block while running the same adventure with 5e causes me to go over from anywhere from a half-hour to an hour. Combat takes only a little longer to resolve but it adds up over the course of a four-hour session.
D&D 5e is able to accomplish this and has a decent amount of character customization because it inflates hit points which allows the system to have multiple ways of inflicting more damage. In the end, I have found combat plays out to roughly the same outcome in similar circumstances whether it is 5e or OD&D + Greyhawk. For example a 6th level party taking on a bunch of trolls.
The downside of doing this and explictly supporting 20 levels of play is that is take more work to write your own stuff for 5e than it does with OD&D+Greyhawk (or Swords & Wizardry). It more fussy to get things right especially if you have something specific in mind. Which is why I prefer working on my Majestic Fantasy rules instead of 5e. Although I did a fair amount of work towards my own own take.
Drafts - Google Drive
drive.google.com
Also if you use some of the option 3.5ism like multi-classing and feats then 5e will have the same problems with optimizations as prior editions and other system that allow similar customization do.
As for running a specific setting, 5e will do the job if the referee judicous tweaks the system to produce the feel they are looking for. An exterme example of this is Adventure in Middle Earth which in my opinion is an excellent example of what the 5e system is capable without being re-skinned D&D. Combat is far more deadlier in this system due to the fact monsters have been boosted in comparison to their nominal CR rating. It is worth checking out.
Beoric
8, 8, I forget what is for
That makes sense.
You clearly don't read Yora's blog, it is all about the DIY campaign content.
squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
I know it seems that way, but actually I did (well...ok...not all of it). That's why I included the second portion...I was trying to help address what seemed like his repeated frustration as world building and his play-group's finicky consumption.