DangerousPuhson
Should be playing D&D instead
Ok controversial title right out of the gate. Got you here reading the thread, so I suppose it worked, right? Advertising!
This place generally echoes the sentiments of Bryce, so I'll let Bryce speak to the problems he has with 5e:
"36 rooms in seven pages is a decent density for 5e. The rooms generally don’t overstay their welcome with excessive trivia and background and read-aloud. Skill checks are done better than in most 5e, with logic and common sense coming in to play at numerous opportunities."
"Tactical mini’s. This is it. This is what people think D&D is. No wonder. No exploration. No roleplay. No interactivity. Just this."
"NPC’s get about a column each in 5e format. Appearance, Voice, Wants, Morality, Intelligence, Status, paragraph. Better, I think, to put together a sentence or two and then move on with life? Then they would all fit on the same page. Mindlessly following a script (or format) is never a good thing."
"There’s advice on not killing the party (in 5e, imagine …) and instructions to run things tough … but also on how to not kill the party. The contradictions are ripe and they all stem from The Story."
"It’s laid out and organized well, easy to scan … and has The Sandbox Problem. Still, great for 5e." ... "The major issue with the adventure though, is The Sandbox Problem. IE: why do the players care? In an older D&D it might be just for the loot, for XP. In modern versions though there tend to need to be other motivations to gain XP."
"Yeah, ok, I fucked up. I saw the cover and “Forgotten Realms” and thought I was buying OSR. It’s DMSGuild so it’s 5e. Not that there are any stats provided in the adventure. Not that it matter anyway; the opponents include a Gibbering Mouther, three wights, a basilisk, and an ancient legendary werewolf. At level one? Yes, at level one."
"While _I_ expect those things it’s clear that most designers don’t. They write dreck after dreck with shitty ass formatting that fights your attempt to use it in actual play. Even the major publishers, WOTC & Paizo, do this (so it’s no wonder people imitate them.)"
If you're following along, the gist of the issues Bryce has with all these 5e adventures are apparent: THE WRITING USUALLY SUCKS. Every time there's a 5e mechanic he doesn't like in the adventure, it's because the writer is USING IT WRONG (succeed on DC12 lockpick on the main dungeon door or no adventure for you, why aren't the stat blocks more condensed, etc.). I for one think it strange to condemn a whole system because apparently nobody competent has yet to write a 5e adventure. Yet that's exactly what the OSR community seems to do - they believe 5e is inferior because "it fosters the wrong motivations" or "the adventures are all so linear" or whatever thing is entirely isolated to a writer and his bad design choices.
Here's the crux of what I'm getting at: just because only a few good 5e products exists, it doesn't mean that all 5e products will be inherently bad. In Bryce's words, the three pillars of good adventure design are "usability, interactivity, and evocativeness" - Usability is a layout/editing issue. Interactivity is a creativity issue. Evocativeness is a vocabulary issue. Notice how none of those have anything to do with rules and game mechanics? Nothing about what XP system is being used, nothing about ascending vs. descending AC, nothing about the d20 system. It's almost as if the rule system doesn't dictate the quality of the writing in the adventure module.
Even Bryce has echoed this sentiment before:
"My belief is that designers don’t know what a good adventure looks like, a good published adventure anyway. They are flooded with bad examples, from WOTC, from PAIZO, through the marketplaces. These drown out any good examples that may be hiding."
Here's where people are making the mistake - It's the pool of 5e writers in the game right now that are coloring your opinions. They're generally shit. Sometimes they hit the mark, mostly they don't. But then, that's the case for everything. For every The Dark Knight, there's a Transformers 3. For every Led Zepplin, there's a Cardi B. For every Maze of the Blue Medusa, there's a Gemsting Caves. I don't assume all movies are bad, I don't assume all bands are bad, and I don't assume all adventures are bad. So why do you, simply because it was written for 5e?
"5e fosters bad player habits, based on monster-killing being the only incentive for party action!" you might say, incorrectly, and probably without ever having touched 5e in your life. But no, GP=XP retro-clones apparently don't foster party motivations... he says sarcastically. To that I leave a Bryce quote again:
"As an aside, the quest-giver offers you 500gp each for each shard of artifact. I’d go hire a village of around 500 people, for 1gp each, and collect 499gp*500 villagers in reward. But, I’m now a nice guy on the weekends so I won’t say that"
Every system has a few drawbacks. I'm not here to say 5e is perfect or even better than other systems. I am here to defend it against allegations that are entirely independent of the system though, like accusations about how 5e adventures are all linear, or the statblocks are too long, or the NPCs aren't fleshed-out or whatever. That's all entirely subjective to the author. Some get it right, some don't. But if you're going to criticize a system, criticize the system: PHB, DMG, MM - those are SYSTEM BOOKS. Adventures published independently are not. Stop using them as ammo for why a system is bad, and think for yourself about something (and ffs, if you have an opinion on a system, at least come into the argument having ACTUALLY USED the system at one point).
Anyways, that's my piece. If you can come with system criticism which relates directly to the system and not some nobody's writing habits, then I'm all ears. Otherwise, I think you're just talking out of your ass.
This place generally echoes the sentiments of Bryce, so I'll let Bryce speak to the problems he has with 5e:
"36 rooms in seven pages is a decent density for 5e. The rooms generally don’t overstay their welcome with excessive trivia and background and read-aloud. Skill checks are done better than in most 5e, with logic and common sense coming in to play at numerous opportunities."
"Tactical mini’s. This is it. This is what people think D&D is. No wonder. No exploration. No roleplay. No interactivity. Just this."
"NPC’s get about a column each in 5e format. Appearance, Voice, Wants, Morality, Intelligence, Status, paragraph. Better, I think, to put together a sentence or two and then move on with life? Then they would all fit on the same page. Mindlessly following a script (or format) is never a good thing."
"There’s advice on not killing the party (in 5e, imagine …) and instructions to run things tough … but also on how to not kill the party. The contradictions are ripe and they all stem from The Story."
"It’s laid out and organized well, easy to scan … and has The Sandbox Problem. Still, great for 5e." ... "The major issue with the adventure though, is The Sandbox Problem. IE: why do the players care? In an older D&D it might be just for the loot, for XP. In modern versions though there tend to need to be other motivations to gain XP."
"Yeah, ok, I fucked up. I saw the cover and “Forgotten Realms” and thought I was buying OSR. It’s DMSGuild so it’s 5e. Not that there are any stats provided in the adventure. Not that it matter anyway; the opponents include a Gibbering Mouther, three wights, a basilisk, and an ancient legendary werewolf. At level one? Yes, at level one."
"While _I_ expect those things it’s clear that most designers don’t. They write dreck after dreck with shitty ass formatting that fights your attempt to use it in actual play. Even the major publishers, WOTC & Paizo, do this (so it’s no wonder people imitate them.)"
If you're following along, the gist of the issues Bryce has with all these 5e adventures are apparent: THE WRITING USUALLY SUCKS. Every time there's a 5e mechanic he doesn't like in the adventure, it's because the writer is USING IT WRONG (succeed on DC12 lockpick on the main dungeon door or no adventure for you, why aren't the stat blocks more condensed, etc.). I for one think it strange to condemn a whole system because apparently nobody competent has yet to write a 5e adventure. Yet that's exactly what the OSR community seems to do - they believe 5e is inferior because "it fosters the wrong motivations" or "the adventures are all so linear" or whatever thing is entirely isolated to a writer and his bad design choices.
Here's the crux of what I'm getting at: just because only a few good 5e products exists, it doesn't mean that all 5e products will be inherently bad. In Bryce's words, the three pillars of good adventure design are "usability, interactivity, and evocativeness" - Usability is a layout/editing issue. Interactivity is a creativity issue. Evocativeness is a vocabulary issue. Notice how none of those have anything to do with rules and game mechanics? Nothing about what XP system is being used, nothing about ascending vs. descending AC, nothing about the d20 system. It's almost as if the rule system doesn't dictate the quality of the writing in the adventure module.
Even Bryce has echoed this sentiment before:
"My belief is that designers don’t know what a good adventure looks like, a good published adventure anyway. They are flooded with bad examples, from WOTC, from PAIZO, through the marketplaces. These drown out any good examples that may be hiding."
Here's where people are making the mistake - It's the pool of 5e writers in the game right now that are coloring your opinions. They're generally shit. Sometimes they hit the mark, mostly they don't. But then, that's the case for everything. For every The Dark Knight, there's a Transformers 3. For every Led Zepplin, there's a Cardi B. For every Maze of the Blue Medusa, there's a Gemsting Caves. I don't assume all movies are bad, I don't assume all bands are bad, and I don't assume all adventures are bad. So why do you, simply because it was written for 5e?
"5e fosters bad player habits, based on monster-killing being the only incentive for party action!" you might say, incorrectly, and probably without ever having touched 5e in your life. But no, GP=XP retro-clones apparently don't foster party motivations... he says sarcastically. To that I leave a Bryce quote again:
"As an aside, the quest-giver offers you 500gp each for each shard of artifact. I’d go hire a village of around 500 people, for 1gp each, and collect 499gp*500 villagers in reward. But, I’m now a nice guy on the weekends so I won’t say that"
Every system has a few drawbacks. I'm not here to say 5e is perfect or even better than other systems. I am here to defend it against allegations that are entirely independent of the system though, like accusations about how 5e adventures are all linear, or the statblocks are too long, or the NPCs aren't fleshed-out or whatever. That's all entirely subjective to the author. Some get it right, some don't. But if you're going to criticize a system, criticize the system: PHB, DMG, MM - those are SYSTEM BOOKS. Adventures published independently are not. Stop using them as ammo for why a system is bad, and think for yourself about something (and ffs, if you have an opinion on a system, at least come into the argument having ACTUALLY USED the system at one point).
Anyways, that's my piece. If you can come with system criticism which relates directly to the system and not some nobody's writing habits, then I'm all ears. Otherwise, I think you're just talking out of your ass.