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Endie posted:After a few decades of playing D&D I've certainly played in a few campaigns where the party were "a motley band of wanderers looking for gold and glory" but those were in the minority. Then for most of that time you were playing D&D wrong. It's nothing to be ashamed of, a lot of people do, but D&D is very much not a toolkit for generic fantasy emulation. A lot of people confuse it for that, and a lot of problems (including unfun play) stem from that confusion.
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Feb 9, 2017 09:52
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Arivia posted:Then for most of that time you were playing D&D wrong. It's nothing to be ashamed of, a lot of people do, but D&D is very much not a toolkit for generic fantasy emulation. A lot of people confuse it for that, and a lot of problems (including unfun play) stem from that confusion. oh man this night has changed my life if only I could have all those years of fun back I would do it all so differently
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Feb 9, 2017 10:01
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Wait you forgot to sperg out about 5th edition in that post. Quick, go back and edit it in before the UK morning crew get back with their coffees.
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Feb 9, 2017 10:05
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AlphaDog posted:Compare pathfinder's core book to next's phb and dmg. D&D has around a hundred pages of extra simplicity! Is this second grade? Because the number of pages in a book is something my second grade kid uses as a gauge of a book's difficulty and bitches about having to read a whole hundred pages. Without pictures even!
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Feb 9, 2017 10:18
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Nihilarian posted:couldn't help but bring up the mind flayer dogs, huh. You keep loving that chicken, buddy. Yeah, I feel like the fixation on intellect devourers here massively over-exaggerates what's one of the smaller problems with 5e's encounter guidelines. I read the statblocks of everything I plan to use in my encounters, so when I see its devour intellect ability, it's obvious what kind of threat it poses, and that I should either not use it against a level 2 party, set up a plan in case someone does get vegetabled, and/or make the party aware of its capabilities in advance and allow the players to plan around them. Sure, it'd be convenient if there was a minion tag or "has a potential instakill ability" tag, but the lack of those hardly seems gamebreaking to me. On the upside, during one of the previous discussions about intellect devourers in this thread, someone inspired the basis of the campaign I'm currently running by joking that a group of IDs should "fatten up" a group of adventurers by causing problems in the world and fooling the adventurers into solving them, whereby the adventurers would gain xp and become better potential hosts. I enjoyed the Animorphs books growing up, so I decided to steal its plot, flavoring IDs as clandestine alien invaders and flipped mind flayers over to the pet role in their relationship. It's been pretty fun so far, and I've just gotten to the point where I can begin feeding my players hints about what's really going on.
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Feb 9, 2017 10:20
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koreban posted:Is this second grade? Because the number of pages in a book is something my second grade kid uses as a gauge of a book's difficulty and bitches about having to read a whole hundred pages. Without pictures even! koreban posted:I like, as a first-time DM in this system, the freedom to not have to memorize an entire codex of rules such that I don't have to spend half the night having players explain to me why they can do a thing that I said they couldn't do because it was ridiculous or didn't make sense. "But here on page 238, paragraph 4 it says you can bleeblenarf the gondlespork and if you look at this book on page 102 it says if you bleeblenarf you can also twigglezot." Maybe try using the rules before telling me how simple they are? Also explain how the length of the rulebook and the complexity of the game aren't directly related. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 11:08 on Feb 9, 2017 |
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Feb 9, 2017 11:03
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AlphaDog posted:Maybe try using the rules before telling me how simple they are? I mean, a book can be 30% Lore. (5e isn't, 5e is garbage, but it is possible.)
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Feb 9, 2017 11:29
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AlphaDog posted:Maybe try using the rules before telling me how simple they are? I don't find them complex but I guess some people might struggle. I'd put 5th Edn a little to the right of the middle of the complexity bell curve: far denser than CoC or V:tG, far less so than Rolemaster or Megatraveller etc etc. The bit about the length not being directly related to complexity is super-obvious: a huge (boring and unnecessary) list of magic items, or an entire book full of monster stats, is not complexity. It's essentially padding with lots of versions of one thing. You could double the length of the magic items section and it wouldn't make the game appreciably more complex, just more dreary. You could create the most complex, abstruse RPG system ever inside a handful of pages if you really wanted to. Or you could take the simplest set of mechanics and pad them out over hundreds of pages with background and examples.
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Feb 9, 2017 11:46
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Calling 5e a 'simple' game is basically saying "I haven't played any non-DnD-related game in the past 10 years". When you eat food, you eat more than McDonalds, the most popular fast food chain. When you watch a movie, you watch more than just the latest superhero flick. When you read a book you read more than just Harry Potter. When you play a video game you play more than Minecraft. Why would you only just play DnD?
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Feb 9, 2017 12:05
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Endie posted:The bit about the length not being directly related to complexity is super-obvious: a huge (boring and unnecessary) list of magic items, or an entire book full of monster stats, is not complexity. It's essentially padding with lots of versions of one thing. You could double the length of the magic items section and it wouldn't make the game appreciably more complex, just more dreary. You could create the most complex, abstruse RPG system ever inside a handful of pages if you really wanted to. Or you could take the simplest set of mechanics and pad them out over hundreds of pages with background and examples. I agree, but I'm not seeing that much of a difference between the complexity of Next and the complexity of Pathfinder. Both are heavily based on the same version of D&D and import most of the same complicated bits. Both have huge mostly dull lists of magic items and huge mostly dull lists of spells. A lot of the complex interactions in D&D and D&D-alikes are between those spells and the rest of the rules, which is common to both systems. "It's simple" and "I don't memorise the rules" go hand in hand, I guess. Rolemaster is super light and simple too, as long as you don't use the rules.
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Feb 9, 2017 12:10
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bewilderment posted:Calling 5e a 'simple' game is basically saying "I haven't played any non-DnD-related game in the past 10 years". If you mean me then you're wrong: horrifyingly, my rpg section of my shelves covers about 5% of my library: I'd guess 15 linear feet of shelves or so of which probably only a quarter is D&D. But if someone did choose to do that then such snobbery over what is a thoroughly low-brow pursuit is ridiculous: if they have fun then someone who is appalled by that is a bit silly. I enjoy Berg and Messiaen but if someone wants to listen to nothing more than Beethoven's string quartets - and if they gain joy from that (as they should) - then it's dumb of me to start squealing about it in outrage or evangelically pushing copies of Vingt Regards under their nose. AlphaDog posted:I agree, but I'm not seeing that much of a difference between the complexity of Next and the complexity of Pathfinder. Both are heavily based on the same version of D&D and import most of the same complicated bits. Both have huge mostly dull lists of magic items and huge mostly dull lists of spells. A lot of the complex interactions in D&D and D&D-alikes are between those spells and the rest of the rules, which is common to both systems. I'd broadly agree with that, yes. The problem with systems that include tons of magic items and legions of monsters is that they introduce a bazillion special cases. Good GMs just rule on those and move on. For an inexperienced one, the game stops as rulings are researched, produced, debated. As you can probably tell, I loathe when games publishers wheel out supplements of low-effort magic items, or Monster Manuals 2-n, Fiend Folio etc etc. The sort of campaign that depends on novel monsters each week doesn't excite me. It sells, though, so some people must like it. Endie fucked around with this message at 12:33 on Feb 9, 2017 |
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Feb 9, 2017 12:28
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I might not know many other systems or be a massive tabletop nerd, but you know what? The 5e starter set cost me £13 and me and 4 of my mates have gotten 3 months of fun out of it, every Monday night. I'd never DMd before and 3 players had never played before and we all picked it up fine. I have a sore throat every Tuesday from doing dumb voices. loving bargain, no regrets whatsoever.
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Feb 9, 2017 12:56
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Endie posted:
To go with a music-related analogy, Andrew Lloyd Webber is the D&D of musicals. It doesn't do anything terribly exciting, it's comparatively pricey, and fans can point to the commercial success and popularity of say Joseph's Technicolour Dreamcoat to deflect criticism of how the music and narrative both lack depth. Yes you can go enjoy a new ALW production, or a school play rendition on the cheap, but there are so many better musicals you could put your patronage to instead of the bloated and glitzy mess, and that you might find much more enjoyable and re-listenable. Also discerning taste can be applied to almost anything, and perceptions of low vs high brow are kinda classist and snobbish.
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Feb 9, 2017 13:17
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Blacknose posted:I might not know many other systems or be a massive tabletop nerd, but you know what? The 5e starter set cost me £13 and me and 4 of my mates have gotten 3 months of fun out of it, every Monday night. I'd never DMd before and 3 players had never played before and we all picked it up fine. I have a sore throat every Tuesday from doing dumb voices. loving bargain, no regrets whatsoever. If I say  I don't mean it in a condescending way. I'm genuinely super-envious of you in the same way I am when someone says they just picked up the first book in a great series they'd never read.
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Feb 9, 2017 13:18
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Ambi posted:To go with a music-related analogy, Andrew Lloyd Webber is the D&D of musicals. It doesn't do anything terribly exciting, it's comparatively pricey, and fans can point to the commercial success and popularity of say Joseph's Technicolour Dreamcoat to deflect criticism of how the music and narrative both lack depth. I wonder if you are aware that you just used cultural absolutism to attack the thing you don't like then segued into cultural relativism to defend the thing you do like. if you pick one or the other I'll be happy to agree or disagree with you depending on your choice. You also did the same thing about snobbishness: you call me out for saying - snobbishly, apparently, despite it being a pursuit I love - that RPGs are low-culture (which in mass-market form they are). But in the same post you get all snobbish about Andrew Lloyd-Webber so that you can slip in another dig at the D&D that gets you so exercised. Now I happen to agree with you about Webber being mush, but remember that you disapprove of my snobbishness, so that's cold comfort to you. In summary, and in absolutist terms, that was a bad post and you should be ashamed. Sorry about my snobbish stance on this.
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Feb 9, 2017 13:29
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These posts are so loving British it huuurts.
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Feb 9, 2017 13:33
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wtf is this bullshit trying to argue about absolutism in your loving elf games discussion jfc. Anyway regardless of if you love it or hate it D&D is a complex loving game of any edition, thats not even something up for debate. A rules light game is something with only one or two resolution mechanics that cover 99% of situations and a pretty minimalistic character creation process. Stuff like Everyone is John is a rules light rpg. D&D NEXT is not a rules light rpg. Its not the most complicated thing out there but there a billion different rules that all cover a tonne of different things with subsystem after subsystem that has a byzantine affect across all the other subsystems to crate this incredibly difficult back and forth interaction that is all but certain to require constant oversight/overruling and DM decision-making. You're genuinely nuts if you think its a rules light rpg. Blacknose posted:I might not know many other systems or be a massive tabletop nerd, but you know what? The 5e starter set cost me £13 and me and 4 of my mates have gotten 3 months of fun out of it, every Monday night. I'd never DMd before and 3 players had never played before and we all picked it up fine. I have a sore throat every Tuesday from doing dumb voices. loving bargain, no regrets whatsoever. Playing some game you picked up on the cheap with some friends is probably the optimal result of buying D&D NEXT. I poo poo on this game constantly but I genuinely hope you and your mates get a lot of fun out of it for as long as you enjoy it. kingcom fucked around with this message at 13:41 on Feb 9, 2017 |
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Feb 9, 2017 13:35
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kingcom posted:wtf is this bullshit trying to argue about absolutism in your loving elf games discussion jfc. I don't think anyone said it was rules light so phew I guess we're all smarties here.
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Feb 9, 2017 13:41
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Endie posted:I don't think anyone said it was rules light so phew I guess we're all smarties here. Sure that sounds good...wait a minute... koreban posted:I'd take 5e's simplicity over PF's weaponized algebra any day of the week. Sounds like someone was saying a defining feature of the game over its counter parts was its simplicity when both those games have pretty minor differences of complexity? Are we going to more circlejerks over the specifics of language or are we going to all go 'yeah that was probably a poor choice of words'?
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Feb 9, 2017 13:45
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Why is everyone talking about this stupid game?
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Feb 9, 2017 13:47
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Skellybones posted:Why is everyone talking about this stupid game? D&D causes brain damage?
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Feb 9, 2017 13:48
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Skellybones posted:Why is everyone talking about this stupid game? Someone had a bad game experience and people are arguing over how much of that has to do with the system they're using.
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Feb 9, 2017 14:08
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koreban posted:Is this second grade? Because the number of pages in a book is something my second grade kid uses as a gauge of a book's difficulty and bitches about having to read a whole hundred pages. Without pictures even! Whoa buddy there are plenty of pictures in the d&d books, you forgot to add those into the books difficulty rating. They reduce it by a few points but the page count does bring it back up. Please also don't forget the multiplier for using multiple at the same time.
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Feb 9, 2017 14:54
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Also me and the only other guy with any gaming experience both prefer it to 3/3.5 which we have tons of experience with, and I think he prefers it as a player to a bunch of other systems he's used. Whether that holds true when it's his turn to DM (he's doing Storm King's Thunder) we shall see.
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Feb 9, 2017 15:13
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I like playing 5e, and so do my friends. Some have never played RPGs before and they found the system pretty easy to pick up. Yes, it's not Fiasco or All Outta Bubblegum levels of simple (and I don't think anyone arguing in good faith is saying it is), but I think it's an easier D&D system to start with than, say, 3.5.
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Feb 9, 2017 15:21
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I was excited to give 5e a go and I mean it's not a terrible system but increasingly it has morphed into 3.5 on my table because every time I have to make a ruling rapidly on a judgement call, which is often, the thing I end up saying turns out to be how it worked in 3.5. So basically 5e just ends up being whatever a DM wants it to be as he house rules everything. I'm just happy I don't have litigious players because they'd eat me alive if I did. Change of topic: I've recently started rolling things like perception, insight, etc for my players behind the screen and giving them the result without telling them what the roll was. This forces them to make decisions based on what they know without the meta knowledge of "well it was a 3 so I shouldn't trust this." It has been a lot of fun and ends up giving the story more of a narrative feel. I would not do this for more "active" checks like athletics or acrobatics where the player would know if they hosed up anyhow and relies on it and definitely not during combat. My question is has anyone ever done it like this, what were the pros and cons, and is there anything in particular to watch out for you can think of that maybe I'm not thinking of? My players aren't likely to call bullshit or not believe me and I've given them no reason to so that is not a major concern, but I would probably have them roll anything with major consequences themselves. Can't imagine that would come up with an insight or perception or knowledge, etc roll though. Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Feb 9, 2017 |
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Feb 9, 2017 15:28
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BadSamaritan posted:I like playing 5e, and so do my friends. Some have never played RPGs before and they found the system pretty easy to pick up. Yes, it's not Fiasco or All Outta Bubblegum levels of simple (and I don't think anyone arguing in good faith is saying it is), but I think it's an easier D&D system to start with than, say, 3.5. You don't actually have to say that apologetically: 5th edition is super-popular and the PHB has sold more copies than any of 3rd, 3.5th or 4th edition. It's a big success. Huge numbers of people enjoy playing it (thank goodness, or the hobby would be in real trouble). There's just a handful of people who luv2post every single day of their lives about how it touched them under the bridge that time. Paramemetic posted:I was excited to give 5e a go and I mean it's not a terrible system but increasingly it has morphed into 3.5 on my table because every time I have to make a ruling rapidly on a judgement call, which is often, the thing I end up saying turns out to be how it worked in 3.5. That's pretty much just good DMing, isn't it? You don't remember the rules for grappling (it's always grappling or overbearing) in system x so instead of looking it up and carefully reading you just tell someone to roll a d20 and use common sense (or some previous system) to interpret it while appearing confident. Endie fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Feb 9, 2017 |
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Feb 9, 2017 15:32
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The way I do perception checks is to have the players roll it, we all see the roll, and I tell them what they see, or if they don't see anything, and we all trust each other enough that we just "play along" with the illusion that they really didn't find anything in the room and they won't go "well can I roll perception again?" or bring out their weapons for no reason just because they as the players expect something to go down. [I don't mean this as a "you should do it this way" argument, but rather just to offer an alternate perspective of how it looks and feels like to do it like that] Endie posted:You don't actually have to say that apologetically: 5th edition is super-popular and the PHB has sold more copies than any of 3rd, 3.5th or 4th edition. It's a big success. Huge numbers of people enjoy playing it (thank goodness, or the hobby would be in real trouble). There's just a handful of people who luv2post every single day of their lives about how it touched them under the bridge that time. Diablo 3 also sold like hotcakes on release, but boy howdy was that not an objective reflection of the thing's quality. This is especially magnified by the "well, we had fun" mentality, and the "you can just change the rules that are bad" mentality that's pervasive across TRPGs as a justification to keep playing whatever you're already invested in.
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Feb 9, 2017 15:37
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AlphaDog posted:Compare pathfinder's core book to next's phb and dmg. D&D has around a hundred pages of extra simplicity! I cannot fathom how someone familiar with Pathfinder would ever, ever describe Pathfinder as a light weight or simple rpg comparitively. Ok sure, on the completely arbitrary example of comparing just core rulebooks, pathfinder has fewer pages. Add up all available material for pathfinder, and you're a walking library of congress, but for dragons. I mean, the idea pathfinder is easier to play than 5e is one of the most absurd statements I've ever heard. It took me an hour to roll up a 5e character. It took me days to roll up a pathfinder character, and then I found out about Path of War and had to do it all over again.
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Feb 9, 2017 15:45
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gradenko_2000 posted:Diablo 3 also sold like hotcakes on release, but boy howdy was that not an objective reflection of the thing's quality. Right, 5e isn't unplayable and you can have fun with it, but it requires a ludicrous amount of DM Adjudication or for everyone to enter into it aware of the pitfalls and how to avoid them. It might be easy to pick up RAW but RAW 5e probably isn't an ideal beginner experience as we've already witnessed. And I highly doubt we're going to have Activisions MMO Rescue Squad swoop in and release 5eaper of 5eouls to fix it.
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Feb 9, 2017 15:51
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Turtlicious posted:Some very basic knowledge: I could see the issue of DM Fiat or homeruling be problematic, but that blog really shoots itself in the foot with its comparison to pathfinder. I mean, his first complaint is that the classes aren't balanced, but Pathfinder is the epitome of dumpstering martial classes in favor of magic casters. I don't know much about the gear grind because our DM homeruled a system for improvement that wasn't gear dependent, but his claim its easy to fail character creation in 5e versus pathfinder? Is that a joke? How much errata and how many books are on paizo right now that you'd have to familiar with to roll a character properly? That's absolutely crazy. The blog might be right about encounter building and mechanics. But at least half the article talks about unbalanced classes and martial vs spellcaster balance, which is probably the biggest problem in pathfinder.
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Feb 9, 2017 15:53
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gradenko_2000 posted:Diablo 3 also sold like hotcakes on release, but boy howdy was that not an objective reflection of the thing's quality. Sure: popularity does not ensure quality. But sustained high sales figures do reflect that people enjoy the game (which is the point of, well, a game) and that word of mouth is still excellent. And in the case of D&D 5th Edition its peak for the past week was 41st on amazon (on the 5th), which is astonishing for an RPG product in its third year on the market. The days before and after it peaked at 42. Kurieg posted:Right, 5e isn't unplayable and you can have fun with it, but it requires a ludicrous amount of DM Adjudication or for everyone to enter into it aware of the pitfalls and how to avoid them. It might be easy to pick up RAW but RAW 5e probably isn't an ideal beginner experience as we've already witnessed. Luckily more people seem "aware of the pitfalls" and willing to spend money on it than on any version of D&D for decades. Phew!
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Feb 9, 2017 15:54
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Endie posted:I wonder if you are aware that you just used cultural absolutism to attack the thing you don't like then segued into cultural relativism to defend the thing you do like. if you pick one or the other I'll be happy to agree or disagree with you depending on your choice. Alright let's give it a shot, though this might be a bit rough since I have only cursory knowledge of cultural ideology, I'm a biochemist not an anthropologist God dammit. From an absolutist point, ALW is musically bland and from a mechanical view of his compositions, uninteresting. From the same, 5e is poorly designed, with obvious incomparibles between classes that are not satisfactorily resolved to any degree of cohesion. The system does not provide comparable returns for equivalent costs. Relative: It might be better if 5e had even been designed with the same level of effort and care put into each option, as obvious bias can be seen in the 9 cleric class options and 8 wizard class options compared to the 2-3 everyone else gets, never mind the entire section of the book only relevant to casters. Hell, even for the Fighter UA most of them shared the same 15th level feature. And since its probably more relativist than absolute, ALW's musicals tend to have excess pomp and drama, and deficit of narrative substance. Both are objectively shoddy products, and comparatively mediocre. If you can PM me a rough breakdown of absolutism vs relativism so I can better structure my criticism that'd be dandy, cheers.
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Feb 9, 2017 16:02
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5es biggest crime is that it's lazy. The rules don't survive fairly simple examination, it abandons lessons of previous editions, it abuses the gently caress out of "ask your gm" instead of resolving even basic questions internally, it didn't bother to put thought into martial classes, it pretends to be rules lite to dodge having to write solid rules.... but then banks on old conventions to avoid needing to actually go lite on rules and develop a good skill test system that would require ....its just not a polished product from a gaming perspective that leans so heavily on nostslgia, name recognition, and a version of the "role play, not ROLL play\dirty dirt OPTIMISERS" canard. You certainly can have fun with it and its useful as a game for a few reasons, but once you understand what parts you like it's almost always better to move on to games that do those things better. Unless that thing you like is "this is a game ive played before and I can't stand to do new things", in which case your life must really suck. CaPensiPraxis fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Feb 9, 2017 |
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Feb 9, 2017 16:03
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User0015 posted:I cannot fathom how someone familiar with Pathfinder would ever, ever describe Pathfinder as a light weight or simple rpg comparitively. Ok sure, on the completely arbitrary example of comparing just core rulebooks, pathfinder has fewer pages. Add up all available material for pathfinder, and you're a walking library of congress, but for dragons. PF's wealth of material/supplements is one thing; the rules themselves are another. User0015 posted:I mean, the idea pathfinder is easier to play than 5e is one of the most absurd statements I've ever heard. It took me an hour to roll up a 5e character. It took me days to roll up a pathfinder character, and then I found out about Path of War and had to do it all over again. In play they're about the same to me (same action economy; martials attack, casters do their thing). Both of your listed times for chargen are not good, but it taking days for you make a PF character sounds like less of an issue with PF's rules and more an issue of you trying to look through all the material. Endie posted:Luckily more people seem "aware of the pitfalls" and willing to spend money on it than on any version of D&D for decades. Phew! I mean good on 5e for selling books but 4e's DDI printed money. I liked 4e but only bought 1 book (Rules Compendium) entirely because of the online tools/CB.
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Feb 9, 2017 16:06
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gradenko_2000 posted:The way I do perception checks is to have the players roll it, we all see the roll, and I tell them what they see, or if they don't see anything, and we all trust each other enough that we just "play along" with the illusion that they really didn't find anything in the room and they won't go "well can I roll perception again?" or bring out their weapons for no reason just because they as the players expect something to go down. Right, that's how I was doing it until a player rolled a 1 on a perception or an insight check and while nobody was weird about it, I kind of had this moment of "there is no doubt that they failed to see a thing that may or may not be there and they know it" and it kind of ended up being like CIA Freedom of Information Act stuff where they send you letters like "we can neither confirm nor deny the existence of such a document, but if such documents did exist, they would be classified." So I just started doing it this other way, but since the norm is usually "players roll their own poo poo and just play along" I thought "well maybe there's a reason for that which I am not thinking of." Things I thought might be problems are 1) players like throwing dice, and if I'm throwing all the dice they don't feel like they are doing anything 2) players might get pissy if they have a strong bonus for things and can't see the failure straight up (they don't trust the DM) 3) players might feel like I'm railroading them if they miss something important, or like, just ignoring the dice and boning them (again, not trusting the DM) but on the other hand it adds a tangible feeling of mystery and (dare I say) immersion if they can't tell, when I say "you squint and stare attentively into the brush, but all you see are twigs and branches" is because there is actually nothing there, or if its because they rolled poorly. Whereas the normal way it's like "well of course I see nothing there I rolled a 2+3 perception." And along with your own disclaimer I'll say I am not saying I've discovered the better way to play or anything, I'm legit just curious if anyone else has done it this way and if so did you run into any problems that maybe I'm not thinking of because I don't want to like, gently caress something up. And if I defend doing things this way it's because I want to talk out problems and not because I believe I've found the One True Way to roll mental skills.
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Feb 9, 2017 16:12
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Endie posted:That's pretty much just good DMing, isn't it? You don't remember the rules for grappling (it's always grappling or overbearing) in system x so instead of looking it up and carefully reading you just tell someone to roll a d20 and use common sense (or some previous system) to interpret it while appearing confident. Yeah I think so, I mean that's how I feel about it. I've never liked looking things up in books in the middle of a session, for me a lot of DMing is rapid fire improv where the rules are up in our head and make a framework for telling the stories. If I have to make a split decision on for example coup-de-grace or dual wielding (both of which I'm doing like 3.5 on my table now) I look up the actual rules later and ask my players "my way or the rules way?" and most of the time my way has been fine. Like coup-de-grace mechanics in 5e are just awful. If I have a guy immobilized and incapacitated, and I'm standing over them, and they are defenseless, rolling with advantage and an auto-crit is just unnecessary and leads to weird circumstances where like "welp you try to slit his throat but he is still alive. Uh just murder him again." Or if they were sleeping now it's "you slit his throat and he's awake again and can attack and poo poo." But anyhow I didn't know those rules at all when the situation came up so I was just like "you kill him, he's dead." More dramatic description than that, but yeah. I think the trick to DMing in 5 or any other system is to not let the rules get in the way of fun, and the struggle is determining if doing so will be actually fun in the long term or if it's just a short term thing that will make the campaign lose something in the future. So yeah I think that's what makes a good DM basically and with a good DM I guess one could say any system can be made to work and be fun. The biggest criticism of 5e that I would have is that it doesn't do much to cultivate good DMs. But then thinking back I'm not sure what other systems would have done differently to make people good DMs, I think it just comes from experience and the right kind of personality. Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Feb 9, 2017 |
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Feb 9, 2017 16:29
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Okay, here's an example of the kind of design that went into 5e and what I find "wrong" with it. This is the Druid's Conjure Woodland Beings spell: quote:CONJURE WOODLAND BEINGS In previous iterations of this game, these sorts of summoning spells would have a specific tabular list of creatures that could be summoned by it, but in 5e, they chose to simply use the CR system. In theory it should still work, because creatures of the same CR are supposed to be of the same relative power level, but the CR system being what it is, that doesn't work out in practice. Specifically, people figured out that you could summon CR 1/4 Pixies with it, which can cast, among other things, Polymorph, Sleep, and Dispel Magic. All while also having the Superior Invisibility spell. People brought this up as a potential issue, to which WOTC released this Sage Advice-cum-errata article in July of 2015: quote:When you cast a spell like conjure woodland beings, does the spellcaster or the DM choose the creatures that are conjured? They basically admitted that summoning Pixies was loving busted, but instead of committing any sort of direct change to the spell, they passed the buck onto the DM to know what they're supposed to be doing. It's incredibly patronizing - you the DM are supposed to know what's "overpowered", and then when the player tries to cast his summoning spell, you're supposed to be the dick and shut him down by saying "nope, you get something else".
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Feb 9, 2017 16:33
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gradenko_2000 posted:It's incredibly patronizing - you the DM are supposed to know what's "overpowered", and then when the player tries to cast his summoning spell, you're supposed to be the dick and shut him down by saying "nope, you get something else". Yeah. It also makes the spell busted in a new way. Say the caster wants a CR 2 bear with his conjure animals spell. So he picks the option "CR 2 or lower" and then basically has to bet on the DM being a nice guy who goes along with it. But for all you know, you end up with a single goldfish. Because that is also an animal with "CR 2 or lower." But that's the DM being a dick! Clearly the game shouldn't be judged on antagonistic DMs, because then no game would ever function correctly! Right? Well, not quite. Pretty much every other spell and class feature just does directly what it says on the tin. There's no room for DM error because under normal circumstances there is no opportunity for it to arise. You know what Magic Missile does. You know what Haste does. Even Charm Person, with its sort of open-ended interaction with roleplaying/charisma checks, has a very distinct and clear effect. The DM normally gently caress you over when you cast these spells, even by accident, because the spell effects are simple and obvious. Conjure monster spells? Pfff, gently caress, who knows what that'll do? Could be overpowered, could be underpowered, could be just right. It's a chance for things to wrong where there didn't need to be one. Past editions already had this poo poo figured out, this didn't ever need to be murky or risky or stupid.
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Feb 9, 2017 16:45
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Aren't there also feats or abilities or spells in 5e that let players re-roll after seeing the roll? How would they know when to apply that re-roll feature if they don't know what the original roll was?
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Feb 9, 2017 16:49
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