5e - why you think it sucks, and why you're wrong

[The Heretic]

I'm reading it to my kids right now, dude. It is fucking radical. SO much stuff I didn't pay attention to when I read this (three times!) as a kid.

I made a LotR reference at work yesterday and one of my newer co-workers gave me a blank look.
"It's from Lord of the Rings."
"Oh, I tried to watch it because it seemed like it was something I would like, but I couldn't get into it. I tried reading the Hobbit and it was boring."

She should've had the Hobbit read to her as a kid.

The Heretic

 

[The1True]

I've been working on my new sword-and-sorcery series for Baen.

Alright man, I've got it downloaded! I'm hitting this as soon as I've finished slumming it in the candy-coated crack that is the Murderbot Diaries...
It looks exactly like my kind of jam. Which makes me wonder yet again about how shitty the Amazon recommendation algorithm is.

 

[Howard Andrew Jones]

Alright man, I've got it downloaded! I'm hitting this as soon as I've finished slumming it in the candy-coated crack that is the Murderbot Diaries...
It looks exactly like my kind of jam. Which makes me wonder yet again about how shitty the Amazon recommendation algorithm is.

Hey, thanks, man. I hope you enjoy it.
As far as that algorithm, Amazon remains confusing and frustrating to me and so many writers...
Murderbot is excellent and is hard to stop reading. And as it happens, Martha Wells was kind enough to blurb the new series for me, before I had even landed the book deal. If you scroll through the recs for mine I'm sure Baen used what she said in the puffery somewhere. Not only is she talented, she's a very kind lady. It's nice to see success happening to good people.

(Oh, and I DM'd you about hex crawl resources. I just saw that Kobold Press is coming out with one. So far I'm most enamored with the ones from Red Tide and Worlds Without Number and Richard Leblanc. I should probably check out Conley's as well. Not sure if it's in print yet.)

 

[The1True]

Confirming all of Squeens greatest fears etc.

oy...

 

[squeen]

That was painful to listen to mainly because of that (Irish?) guys voice!

So basically:

1) The new "D&D" will be a video game behind a paywall?
2) It will be AI generated in real-time (to replace human DMs)?
3) It will be monetized out the wazoo?

Honestly, it doesn't affect me at all. Everything I use was written before 1980 or based on it the (original) OSR and is on physical paper. We just need to accept that authentic D&D is a historical artifact, like chess or Go, and the new stuff is just "something else"---a game for a different age and aesthetic.

That Chris Cocks (dude-with-the-lego-face) quote about everyone already using AI for D&D content generation in some form is 100% bullshit. I am that exception and will always be. The machine doesn't own me. This is my hobby, not your revenue stream. Resist.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

That Chris Cocks (dude-with-the-lego-face) quote about everyone already using AI for D&D content generation in some form is 100% bullshit. I am that exception and will always be.

It's not just you - everyone is the exception, because that quote is a bunch of shit pulled out of his ass. Maybe his creatively-bankrupt employees use AI for everything, but if the quality of recent offerings is anything to go by, they shouldn't be.

As much as I can appreciate modern D&D, I will absolutely not be giving WotC any more of my money. This new edition does not tickle any of my fancies. Not even a wiggle.

 

[squeen]

...I will absolutely not be giving WotC any more of my money. This new edition does not tickle any of my fancies. Not even a wiggle.

Ha! Now who's the old fart?

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Pushing 40. My back hurts...

I mostly object to the "game-as-a-service, always-online" model they seem to be going for. It reminds me too much of the predatory way videogame publishers have been doing business for the past two decades, squeezing out every dollar via microtransactions and endless DLC. I realize D&D has always been about sales after the core books (settings/supplements/modules being a thing and whatnot), but this is way too aggressive.

 

[squeen]

It was never a matter of "if" only "when". Everyone wants to be your utility company and/or landlord.

 

[Beoric]

Does anyone have a tl;dr on this, 'cause I'm 3 minutes in and feeling like this could have been said in an email.

Is this rant about the rumor I heard that the books were only going to be digital, and by subscription do you don't actually own it? If so, that's an easy pass. I mean, TSR and WotC (not to mention the retroclones) spent the last 50 years pumping out enough material to make it an incredibly bad idea.

If they think AI can generate decent content, it clearly means they have no idea about what AI really can do, and what DMs and players actually do. Because let's be clear, it isn't really artificial intelligence, it is simulated intelligence.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Because let's be clear, it isn't really artificial intelligence, it is simulated intelligence.

I'm with you on your points, but this drum has been beaten to death around here. Semantics are not the problem. The problem is that people think "AI" (or whatever you choose to call it) is some sort of magical, infallible "automate all the digital shit" button.

I have always seen what we call "AI" presently as being a solution in search of problems - and playing D&D online is not a "problem" right now.

 

[squeen]

The video argues the "problem" AI solves is lack of good DMs.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

The video argues the "problem" AI solves is lack of good DMs.

Such a shitty idea. You're right; might as well be playing a videogame at that point.

AI DM: "You are in a dusty, cobwebbed room. A goblin stands on a stool. Exits lead West and North."

Player: "I want to talk to the goblin"

AI DM: "I'm sorry, I don't understand"

Player: *sigh* "SPEAK TO GOBLIN"

AI DM: "I'm sorry, I don't understand"

Player: "TALK GOBLIN"

AI DM: "You cannot speak Goblin"

Player: "SPEAK COMMON TO GOBLIN"

AI DM: "I'm sorry, I don't understand"

Player: "SAY IN COMMON: 'Hello goblin'"

AI DM: "I'm sorry, I don't understand"

Player: "STAB GOBLIN"

AI DM: "There is no goblin here"

Player: *numerous expletives*

 

[Beoric]

The video argues the "problem" AI solves is lack of good DMs.

How the F are they going to train that? Scrape the web for actual play games (read: "performances") like Critical Role? There isn't remotely enough data.

I'm pretty sure some Hasbro executive got conned by a techbro.

EDIT: Reminds me of all the arguments I was getting into for a while with techbros, who kept trying to tell me I could be replaced/assisted with an LLM, based on their entirely wrong assessment of what my job entails. This is going to go worse than their attempt to build digital tools in-house during the early 4e period.

 

[Beoric]

Ok, I watched it. Def could have been an email.

Lots of speculation with not a lot of evidence. Which doesn't necessarily mean there isn't any truth to it.

Re: low numbers of DMs, the reason there are few DMs, is because WotC pushes this hardcore DM as entertainer playstyle, where Matt Mercer is held up as the gold standard. It makes DMing seem really intimidating, and I have spoken to people who don't want to DM because they don't think they could meet expectations. As opposed to when I was gaming as a kid, and just about everyone at the table was also a DM of some other campaign at some point - actually, all of the people I regularly played with were also DMs, all of us individually owned the core books, and a lot of us also had the add-ons.

If Hasbro wants more DMs, they should make DMing more accessible by promoting playstyles that don't require a BFA in theatre to participate. Get rid of the whole celebrity DM schtick. Put out modules that don't require you to heavily annotate 200-300 pages to run. IMO, the 9 pages of G1 (13 if you count the covers and the maps) are the gold standard for this.

The modules thing is particularly aggregious. They keep trying to make things easier for DMs by creating rigid railroads and lengthy if/then narratives, and end up doing the opposite by creating these massive walls of useless text. Their design requires you to keep turning to the wall of text as a reference, which makes it difficult to improvise because you never know if you are going to screw up something that appears elsewhere in the module. Shorter, less wordy modules are easier to run because it's easier to review everything in them and know that you probably aren't missing critically important information; and the older DM books expressly told you you could make up whatever you wanted to fill in the blanks.

I know I harp on the module thing a lot, but if the design of a module leaves DMs afraid to improvise because if they make an error it can break the scenario, that is not a well designed module. Even the new, less railroady, not entirely terrible scenarios that have been coming out lately suffer from this information overload.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

If Hasbro wants more DMs, they should make DMing more accessible by promoting playstyles that don't require a BFA in theatre to participate.

A fucking proper manual about how to be a DM would be nice, something a little more fleshed out than the shitty pre-made magic item catalogues and mule-rental price tables of the DMGs of yore.

The modules thing is particularly aggregious. They keep trying to make things easier for DMs by creating rigid railroads and lengthy if/then narratives, and end up doing the opposite by creating these massive walls of useless text. Their design requires you to keep turning to the wall of text as a reference, which makes it difficult to improvise because you never know if you are going to screw up something that appears elsewhere in the module.

I too share an aversion to modules with too much included lore set out in a linear, breakable way. I always end up spending way more time going "hold on a sec, I gotta check something..." whenever I run big WotC pre-mades. And the bit about screwing up something only for it to come around and bite you later in the module is probably my biggest peeve ever.

That being said, I've since mastered the mentality of improvisational adaptation and the "it was supposed to be like that all along" pivot mindset, so the damage is certainly lessened now compared to my younger days. But still, a module is meant to be fought by the players, not meant to be fought by the DM.

 

[The1True]

That Chris Cocks (dude-with-the-lego-face) quote about everyone already using AI for D&D content generation in some form is 100% bullshit. I am that exception and will always be. The machine doesn't own me. This is my hobby, not your revenue stream. Resist.

I wonder if what he means by that is that most DM's resort to generators at one time or another? Particularly NPC and monster pregens...

 

[The1True]

Does anyone have a tl;dr on this

Problem: DM's aren't where the money's at, the millions of Players are. How can we get at that sweet sweet Player money?
Solution: AI!!!!!!111111one
Profit.

I mean, Squeen complains about this all the time in our regularly scheduled edition wars: Players have had significantly more agency since all the way back in 2e, but it really got turbocharged in 3. I've spent damn near as much time working on my character between sessions in 3e as the DM has on prep work. Plotting out Skill and Feat trees. Prestige Class progressions. Designing and Crafting Items!!! That shit requires piles of splat books! Funnnn

 

[The1True]

I was getting into for a while with techbros, who kept trying to tell me I could be replaced/assisted with an LLM

Ah, but the machine came for the blue-collar working man last time. THIS TIME, the AI is very much coming for the doctors and lawyers, my friend. My brother has been advising his interns to stear away from GP and take up specialist positions at the hospital instead.

My colleagues and I in digital art and animation are rightly concerned as well. It's not apocalyptic (yet), but it's pretty damn serious.

 

[Beoric]

I'm with you on your points, but this drum has been beaten to death around here. Semantics are not the problem. The problem is that people think "AI" (or whatever you choose to call it) is some sort of magical, infallible "automate all the digital shit" button.

I have always seen what we call "AI" presently as being a solution in search of problems - and playing D&D online is not a "problem" right now.

The semantics are part of the reason people think these things are actually intelligent. The "artificial" part of artificial intelligence make people think they are an actual intelligence, artificially created.

And they just won't grok that LLMs, for instance, are a dead end on the way to developing artificial actual intelligence. I've had way too many conversations where the rebuttal to my pointing out the limitations of these things is, essentially, that they will eventually spontaneously develop actual intelligence, and [spooky voice] "how would we know?".

That being said, I've since mastered the mentality of improvisational adaptation and the "it was supposed to be like that all along" pivot mindset, so the damage is certainly lessened now compared to my younger days. But still, a module is meant to be fought by the players, not meant to be fought by the DM.

Yeah, you still have to read the miserable things. I've stopped doing that.

Problem: DM's aren't where the money's at, the millions of Players are. How can we get at that sweet sweet Player money?
Solution: AI!!!!!!111111one
Profit.

Problem: The only people spending money on our products are DMs.
Solution: Make DMs superfluous.
Profit?