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To be clear, I'm not out here caping for Wizards here or anything, I get anyone who wants to not support them anymore and am pretty much at that point myself. I just utterly abhor language with the implication that because you play some game with friends that's made by a lovely company, that you are a bad person. To use DCs own words DC posted:A lot of BIPOC and other marginalized people are trying to make their way by using D&D. Dont shame them for that. Think about how much, and when you wield your anger, that it is done righteously. Life sucks too much to pass any type of judgement on the people who play the game Arthil posted:It was admittedly made somewhat in jest. Though not entirely. Some people do not want to try anything other than 5E no matter how similar another system may be. Even though, using the one I've been recommending as an example, when I've gotten to be a player at a con or two it really felt a LOT like 5e without some of the annoyances. Yeah fair point, it's easier thought If you are starting a new group to just say, it's not quite D&D but a system similar to it. Most people if you are willing to do a bit of heavy lifting as the GM as far as helping them you can convince to try something for a session.
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Jul 7, 2020 00:54
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Literally no one has said that you’re poo poo just for playing D&D and many people (including myself) have said that we shouldn’t be judging each other just for playing 5e, though?
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Jul 7, 2020 00:59
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LGD posted:tbh outside of any edition warring/legitimate criticism of the ostensible flagship tabletop rpg, it is genuinely about time for a new edition anyway, we're coming up on a full 6 years since D&D 5e was released, about the same gap as 3.5->4 (2003->2008) and 4->5 (2008->2014) Yeah I'm extremely ready for a new edition to wipe the loving slate with this entire conversation and hopefully, finally, bring back the good parts of 4E while laying its ghost to rest
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Jul 7, 2020 01:01
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Arivia posted:I'm wary of saying Pathfinder 2e is easier to learn than 5e. It'll be much easier to onboard people once the Beginner Box is available, but right now it's a lot of rules and a lot of complicated pieces to fit together. pathfinder 2e frontloads a lot of rules to learn for both the DM and the player, i both ran and played it and it was pretty rough to get started with ... it eventually got better. i do not really like the system much(not a fan of the talent tree progression personally) but it is legit. i think players are going to be able to learn it easily enough though, i do not think it is significantly harder to learn than 5e
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Jul 7, 2020 01:02
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Dexo posted:Yeah fair point, it's easier thought If you are starting a new group to just say, it's not quite D&D but a system similar to it. I've got some direct experience seeing it in action with SotDL. At a local convention in my city, I have played it several times and each time only really myself and the GM knew a lot about the game. But everyone picked it up easily enough, and usually I'd ask some of them what they thought. Most didn't realize they weren't playing D&D 5E, and at least for those who liked d20 systems said they'd try it again.
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Jul 7, 2020 01:03
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LGD posted:tbh outside of any edition warring/legitimate criticism of the ostensible flagship tabletop rpg, it is genuinely about time for a new edition anyway, we're coming up on a full 6 years since D&D 5e was released, about the same gap as 3.5->4 (2003->2008) and 4->5 (2008->2014) From every discussion I've had with anyone at WotC (or connected to WotC) on the subject, 5E is deliberately designed to spoonfeed the content out as slow as possible and expected to last 10+ years. There are zero plans that I'm aware of related to a 5.5/6E reboot even getting started for multiple years, and that was before COVID slowed everything down further.
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Jul 7, 2020 01:06
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Arthil posted:It was admittedly made somewhat in jest. Though not entirely. Some people do not want to try anything other than 5E no matter how similar another system may be. Even though, using the one I've been recommending as an example, when I've gotten to be a player at a con or two it really felt a LOT like 5e without some of the annoyances. I mean that's because it pretty much is - Schwalb was a 5e designer and a lot of the cool stuff SotDL does within the general framework of a D&D-like system is explicitly in-line with a lot of D&D 5E's explicit (and implicit) design goals around getting rid of fiddly modifiers, simplifying things, bounded math, better emulating fantasy literature in terms of having magical items be an exception and big deal rather than one more obligatory ornament for the christmas tree, etc. (and then of course he's more free to modify or kill some of the sacred cows like ability scores/the class system, or introduce bigger twists like the initiative system, with generally good results) (and of course imo in many respects it does a good job of capturing many of the proper "tummyfeels" of the non-4th edition versions of D&D, while still borrowing some of 4th's innovations) tbh this is one of the things that makes the current lack of a "normie" version of the SotDL system so frustrating, because there's a ton of good design that's extremely relevant, generally palatable, and generally easy to convey to people steeped in the D&D RPG framework but to discuss any of that you need to get people past the outre aesthetics LGD fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Jul 7, 2020 |
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Jul 7, 2020 01:10
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No. 1 Apartheid Fan posted:Yeah I'm extremely ready for a new edition to wipe the loving slate with this entire conversation and hopefully, finally, bring back the good parts of 4E while laying its ghost to rest 5E is way more popular than all the other editions were combined and there is no way WotC is killing 5E anytime soon
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Jul 7, 2020 01:12
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Arivia posted:Literally no one has said that you’re poo poo just for playing D&D and many people (including myself) have said that we shouldn’t be judging each other just for playing 5e, though? Arivia posted:Also buying 5e products right now is morally trash, so why get them started with that and try to get all moralistic on them later? just do it right from the beginning. Maybe I read too much into that, and if I did I apologize. But that's what I had the problem with.
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Jul 7, 2020 01:14
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:5E is way more popular than all the other editions were combined and there is no way WotC is killing 5E anytime soon ehhh, that's only dubiously true where 4th is concerned, and in-general the reasons for its popularity have little to do with the quality/specific virtues of 5E, and quite a bit to do with it being (for most people) the tabletop RPG when a bunch of changes to the media/distribution landscape occurred that those changes happened is precisely why imo they probably should be looking at a new edition (or alterations to the general approach of using D&D 5E as a means of warehousing an IP), so as to properly capitalize on it that they're not, and this is the case: Toshimo posted:From every discussion I've had with anyone at WotC (or connected to WotC) on the subject, 5E is deliberately designed to spoonfeed the content out as slow as possible and expected to last 10+ years. There are zero plans that I'm aware of related to a 5.5/6E reboot even getting started for multiple years, and that was before COVID slowed everything down further. is a bummer, and imo something of a risk to the brand's relevance long-term (otoh absolutely less of a financial risk to Hasbro, which is the more relevant concern of course)
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Jul 7, 2020 01:25
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Dexo posted:Maybe I read too much into that, and if I did I apologize. But that's what I had the problem with. That was meant to refer to the act of purchasing right now, with everything that's gone on. I wouldn't recommend buying anything more from them, but playing the game/enjoying it with your friends is completely understandable and a-ok.
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Jul 7, 2020 01:35
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So going back to recommendations for Heroic Fantasy D&D a likes I would suggest Fantasy Craft if you are willing to put up with some crunch, and can find it. It is a d20 game based off of 3.x D&D, or more accurately off the modern spy game SpyCraft that was built off of 3.x D&D. Your character has an Origin which involves your Species, and in the case of Humans your Human Talent as well, and your Speciality. You then have your Class and no Fighter is not a Class, it is a Specialty though. Later there are Expertise Classes that could be taken that really change things, and eventually there are Master Classes which are really build defining. Each class has a "capstone" but at 14th level so you can get it well before the game ends. Also the Expert and Master classes if taken as early as possible would have the capstone at your 14th level as well. Things you can make in the game include a Drake, large sized dragon like creature, a giant, an ogre, a tree person, a construct, a goblin, a lizardfolk or an orc. Or you could be a human, dwarf, elf, or "halfling". Species feats can turn things into basically a Drider, basically a Pixie, or basically a Yeti. The game has Campaign Qualities to customize how your game works, and Alignment is done differently from basically everything else. Alignment only comes up with the divine campaign quality, doesn't have to be good/evil, and only matters for those that can take paths that grant them abilities at different tiers.
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Jul 7, 2020 02:33
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Arivia posted:I'm wary of saying Pathfinder 2e is easier to learn than 5e. It'll be much easier to onboard people once the Beginner Box is available, but right now it's a lot of rules and a lot of complicated pieces to fit together. My player learning PF2e with just a 5e background is fine, but that's still different from getting a whole group started up with it (where at least one person if not two needs to read 75% of the core rulebook cover to cover for it to run smoothly.) It's a great game, and it runs well once you learn it, but it's a steep cliff to climb at the beginning. This is true. I was mostly trying to say 5e isn't actually that easy to learn while playing, haha. After two years half my 5e group still didn't really know a lot of the rules that applied to them because they weren't interested in reading the book.
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Jul 7, 2020 03:24
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Read Your Books. Please, read the books.
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Jul 7, 2020 04:00
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I'd like to chime in that if someone is going to divest from D&D / WOTC over ethical issues, hopping on over to Paizo's Pathfinder is not much of an improvement. Fellowship is a good general recommendation. Shadow of the Demon Lord has good rules, but the theme is very particular and players need to be aware of that. If you really REALLY want to play D&D, or something close enough to it that people cannot tell the difference, and you don't already own some older version of D&D, and don't want to give WOTC any money, I'd recommend something like For Gold & Glory or Labyrinth Lord.
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Jul 7, 2020 04:15
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LGD posted:ehhh, that's only dubiously true where 4th is concerned, and in-general the reasons for its popularity have little to do with the quality/specific virtues of 5E, and quite a bit to do with it being (for most people) the tabletop RPG when a bunch of changes to the media/distribution landscape occurred Yeah, 5E is popular for reasons completely independent of WotC/Mearls' design choices. However, WotC doen't understand this for the most part and will continue to ride 5E into the ground until the last second
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Jul 7, 2020 04:21
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I'm familiar with 5e from many years of fringe interest. A few of my players are even poo poo at English so itd be nice to play something I can explain too.
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Jul 7, 2020 14:39
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The worst thing about the "fewer but higher quality releases" thing is that the releases are by and large not that high quality. Apart from maybe the two latest campaign settings, everything they have put out besides the 3 main books has had fundamental design issues. Besides the incredible /r/curseofstrahd community on reddit doing sweeping writeups and changes to that adventure to improve it, none of the other adventures are getting any attention.
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Jul 7, 2020 16:39
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5e was literally intended as the edition they made to keep the rights because Mearls concluded game design was "too hard" and they were going to spin off into licensing. They got real lucky with critical role.
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Jul 7, 2020 17:21
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:5e was literally intended as the edition they made to keep the rights because Mearls concluded game design was "too hard" and they were going to spin off into licensing. Which is crazier yet because they originally played Pathfinder and switched to D&D. It's why Percival is a tinkerer gunperson; they had to homebrew him into 5e.
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Jul 7, 2020 17:35
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Gonna chime in slightly contrarian here and say that a lot of the 5E releases have been decent. The adventures are fine once you get past the initial wave of garbage that happens in every edition, the campaign setting books are good, and the one big splatbook (Xanathar's) is uninspired but significantly better and more balanced than - at a minimum - the vast majority of 3E splats. Volo's and Mordenkainen's are pretty great. It doesn't exactly blow me away or anything, but 5E isn't a badly-supported RPG. "They could've done a lot worse" isn't exactly a high bar for the industry's flagship game, I guess
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Jul 7, 2020 18:14
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I always hear that the 3.5 splats are super unbalanced, and yeah there are some broken things in some of them (Night Stick comes to mind, as does Divine Metamagic). But honestly I think the most broken book in 3.5 is the PHB. That’s where the most broken classes and many of the most broken spells are. At least some of the splats made it fun to play something other than a full caster.TheGreatEvilKing posted:5e was literally intended as the edition they made to keep the rights because Mearls concluded game design was "too hard" and they were going to spin off into licensing. Is there a source on that Mearls quote? That is hilarious.
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Jul 7, 2020 18:18
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No. 1 Apartheid Fan posted:"They could've done a lot worse" isn't exactly a high bar for the industry's flagship game, I guess yeah  also, how much "5e" content is just rehashes of existing products? at least two of the books off the top of my head are remakes and collections of existing adventures (yawning portal and saltmarsh) with others like strahd being heavily based off existing adventures. i don't expect something like D&D to completely invent new settings every edition but this edition seems especially lazy.
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Jul 7, 2020 18:21
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Kaysette posted:yeah in that vein volo's guide to monsters is the same monster ecology stuff that's been around since 1e and sold as books since 2e. mordenkainen's tome of foes is a manual of planes/fiend sourcebook. xanathar's guide to everything is 1e unearthed arcana horde of the dragon queen/rise of tiamat are new because they just slammed a bunch of stuff that makes no sense together princes of the apocalypse is temple of elemental evil out of the abyss is kind of new, I guess? it's just roadtripping around the underdark with some demons on top. so they put existing stuff together in really bland, bad ways. curse of strahd is an update to ravenloft storm king's thunder is combining some old stuff (giantcraft, the savage frontier, and Iymrith) in an okay way tales from the yawning portal is mostly all old stuff, but death in thay is new for 5e tomb of annihilation is jungle of chult + tomb of horrors stapled together waterdeep dragon heist is new, bad, but new waterdeep dungeon of the mad mage is a terrible update of undermountain ghosts of saltmarsh is mostly all old stuff descent into avernus is mostly all new (again, inspired by old stuff, but putting everything down in avernus isn't a bad new idea) icewind dale who the gently caress knows sword coast adventurer's guide is just an update to the 4e FRCG/Neverwinter ravnica is new acquisitions incorporated is new eberron is just an update to the 4e ECG wildermount is new theros is new so yes, the actual new stuff is settings from MtG or actual plays, and a handful of adventures. it's hard to do really new products for D&D this far in, but 4e turned out some great new ones and it's sad to not see that continue.
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Jul 7, 2020 18:30
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Arivia posted:waterdeep dragon heist is new, bad, but new Dragon Heist is a wonderful adventure. It mixes combat and social really well and the setting has lots of interesting details to make it feel real.
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Jul 7, 2020 19:17
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nelson posted:Dragon Heist is a wonderful adventure. It mixes combat and social really well and the setting has lots of interesting details to make it feel real. i'm lighting the toshimo signal right now, give it a few mins
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Jul 7, 2020 19:20
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Arivia posted:in that vein volo's guide to monsters is the same monster ecology stuff that's been around since 1e and sold as books since 2e. I don't see how this is a problem, fwiw. The Monster Manual is just the Monster Manual, too. Yeah, there's a broader thing with being lazy/uncreative in 5E, but that's different from it being bad. That stuff still exists in a world where they also publish some more inspired, interesting poo poo.
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Jul 7, 2020 19:21
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nelson posted:Dragon Heist is a wonderful adventure. It mixes combat and social really well and the setting has lots of interesting details to make it feel real. no. it's trash. where the gently caress did another manshoon clone come from, after having only one remaining is a very important plot point in 5e. what's up with their magical hideout, and why did they not duke it out there during the manshoon wars. why the gently caress are mirt and laeral not talking to each other like they have in times of crisis 395923959 times before they needed to retcon who had the dragonstaff of ahghairon since wotc's designers forgot to check that at all why the gently caress did they do such a terrible hatchet job on the cassalanters, instead of using any of the pre-existing villainous noble houses in waterdeep the actual structure of the adventure "hey don't let the PCs get the macguffin until the railroad has reached its next station" is trash anything cool and interesting about the setting was something Ed Greenwood, Steven Schend, or Eric Boyd wrote previously. Also they got rid of Slut Street because they're loving cowards. 5e doesn't even have any social encounter/combat mechanics to mix effectively. holy god, dragon heist is possibly the worst adventure of the edition, and that's saying a LOT.
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Jul 7, 2020 19:25
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No. 1 Apartheid Fan posted:I don't see how this is a problem, fwiw. The Monster Manual is just the Monster Manual, too. literally the last line of the post you quoted but edited it out for some reason??? me posted:so yes, the actual new stuff is settings from MtG or actual plays, and a handful of adventures. it's hard to do really new products for D&D this far in, but 4e turned out some great new ones and it's sad to not see that continue.
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Jul 7, 2020 19:26
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Arivia posted:no. You’re talking about irrelevant things. Dragon Heist is a ton of fun. Players can join factions and they even get their own tavern! How cool is that? 
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Jul 7, 2020 20:03
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nelson posted:You’re talking about irrelevant things. Dragon Heist is a ton of fun. Players can join factions and they even get their own tavern! How cool is that? Except the adventure doesn’t do anything to facilitate any of that happening or being interesting and it has to be fleshed out by your GM or DM’s Guild products. Also something being fun doesn’t mean it’s good design. People have fun playing bad games all the time. Fun doesn’t excuse Dragon Heist being trash.
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Jul 7, 2020 20:10
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nelson posted:You’re talking about irrelevant things. Dragon Heist is a ton of fun. Players can join factions and they even get their own tavern! How cool is that? Ordinarily I’d assume something like this is a weak troll but I think you’re serious.
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Jul 7, 2020 20:37
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Kaysette posted:Ordinarily I’d assume something like this is a weak troll but I think you’re serious. Of course I’m serious. As a player, Dragon Heist is pretty awesome. Perhaps there are some issues for DMs but for players it is a ton of fun. Best one I’ve played and we play a lot of published adventures in my group. My character got to join the Harpers. How is that not cool?
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Jul 7, 2020 20:41
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I have a hard time getting into the Forgotten Realms stuff because i have so little exposure to any of it that the high level of namedropping doesn't do anything for me.
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Jul 7, 2020 20:49
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I'm about midway thru running my group through Avernus and honestly like 90% of the namedropping falls flat with them. Which is fine because I'm the same. But it's pretty telling that some of their favourite stuff so far has been poo poo I've tacked on. In retrospect I really wish I'd started them out in Elturel, because the threat of BG getting sent down to hell with the way it's described in that opening chapter makes it sound like maybe it deserves to be there, lol. It's been hard to convince the group to care about it, so I've stopped trying -- they are mostly into figuring out how to help Lulu so they can just get home. If that helps Elturel get back to the normie plane and BG gets saved in the process, cool.
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Jul 7, 2020 20:56
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nelson posted:Of course I’m serious. As a player, Dragon Heist is pretty awesome. Perhaps there are some issues for DMs but for players it is a ton of fun. Best one I’ve played and we play a lot of published adventures in my group. My character got to join the Harpers. How is that not cool?
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Jul 7, 2020 21:06
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Joining one of the five factions is just like..a thing literally anyone can do unless your GM says no. It doesn't have to be explicitly written into a book to be a thing. I'm having a hard time seeing that as a big selling point.
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Jul 7, 2020 21:20
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nelson posted:Of course I’m serious. As a player, Dragon Heist is pretty awesome. Perhaps there are some issues for DMs but for players it is a ton of fun. Best one I’ve played and we play a lot of published adventures in my group. My character got to join the Harpers. How is that not cool? Your DM could have made a better adventure where you also get to join the Harpers. Hell, a neural network could probably have made a better adventure where you get to join the Harpers. "Joining the Harpers" is not some magical protected thing you can only do if you use this specific adventure.
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Jul 7, 2020 21:24
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disaster pastor posted:Your DM could have made a better adventure where you also get to join the Harpers. Hell, a neural network could probably have made a better adventure where you get to join the Harpers. "Joining the Harpers" is not some magical protected thing you can only do if you use this specific adventure.
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Jul 7, 2020 21:40
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My biggest peeve about pretty much all the official 5e content being rehashes of old stuff is that they aren't even rehashing the cool old stuff. They could have put out a new Planescape book! Or Spelljammer! Or Dark Sun! But instead we got... Icewind Dale? I genuinely don't think WotC has a clue why D&D is popular now, although organizational incompetence shouldn't surprise from an company with as many issues as is obviously the case.
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Jul 7, 2020 21:43
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