D&D 5E Discussion

[J1M]

Why would anyone try 4e? There are much better board games in the market.

I told my GM a lot of people say DND 5e is bad. He said "who? go on reddit, people love it".
I said "I hang around places where people say they're proud of never having even touched 4 and 5e". He says "well, see? they haven't even tried it, how would they know".

I didn't even answer anything. It's the whole "should you try shit to make sure it tastes bad" argument. The more I play with this DM, the more I learn to just stay silent.

The issue with this applied to 4e is that most people who actually played it (earnestly, not by trying to prove something or purposely ignoring entire chapters of the rules) enjoyed it.

The majority of criticisms in contemporary reviews and forum discussions about 4e are factually wrong.

Every aspect of 4e is geared towards a board game rather than an RPG. Stuff like "per encounter" and "per day" abilities, being able to change your abilities by re-specing in level ups, etc. That stuff doesn't make any sense in whatever imaginary world you can conceive, unless it is specifically made to look like a "game world". Most people, on seeing this stuff, won't even try to play because that is a completely different idea than even 3e. 3e was focused on builds, but they were still supposed to exist in a world where you could, in theory, attempt anything. Character abilities still were supposed to be aspects of the setting rather than simply actions the game allowed you to do. So even people who really liked 3e would be put off by 4e. Yeah, I never tried 4e, and I don't intend to. If I wanted to, I would look for someone to play Gloomhaven with instead, which seems more interesting anyway.

The flaw in this logic is that the wildly popular 5e has those same elements. It just renamed them. Also, casters regain spells after a long rest in 3.5 too, so that's quite the tricky line to walk between "extremely popular" and "refused on principle" according to your theory.

I have a different theory: almost every reason people give about why they never gave 4e a fair shot is a rationalization. The real reason is poor choices in terms of character artwork and book layout by the new senior art director, Stacy Longstreet. I would go so far to say as every artistic decision made except for the visual language on the book spines was some form of a mistake.

Other contributing 4e missteps include: releasing a new edition during a time of economic downturn and trying to drastically alter existing settings, thereby giving people lore reasons to reject the ruleset.

 

[Lhynn]

The reason why 5e is so popular is that it made whats supposedly a cooperative experience feel good. See, sadly 3.5 fucked up when it came to that, you had classes that could resolve entire encounters in a single turn by doing a thing, and you had classes that could only do one thing and do it poorly, and you threw everyone into the mix and ended up with an experience in which, either you went full DM fiat and railoaded the whole thing into letting everyone shine, or you had people doing well and people doing poorly entirely based on character creation.

4e was an interesting experiment, and it did do several things to make the cooperative experience feel better, but sadly it betrayed too many principles and felt too artificial, it alienated its core audience by straying too far from the path. Without that core audience to spread the word of mouth, you are fucked.

Here comes 5e, a system clearly inspired in the glory days of AD&D but neatly designed to allow everyone to naturally shine as they had well defined skills and reasonable chances of success without being overwhelming. While at the same time making everyone about as capable in a combat, so nobody feels like they are the ugly child left out (Except monks really, but WOTC has caught a lot of flak for making monk basically trash).
Concentration and advantage/disadvantage are brilliant, the first one allows you a more nuanced approach to magic, one that better reflects wizards in stories of old, where they didnt buff with every buff under the sun, but they used spells when appropiate. The second one allows the narrative to influence the mechanics, which means players are encouraged to engage with the story to get mechanical benefits. These two things are at the core of whats 5e.

 

[J1M]

In my role as broken record I will point out that 5e Concentration is substantially similar to the 4e Sustain keyword used in numerous Wizard spells.

 

[Bester]

DM offered to do a PvP arena session. I'm game, but I ask to slightly alter my build. He goes "no, then we'll all do overoptimized builds and it won't be fun".
First of all, it'll be fun. Who doesn't like build optimization?
And second, I have fucking "Far Scribe" talent and the likes. It lets me do a "send" on people who scribbled down their name in my grimoire. I'm heavily social-oriented.
Meanwhile our clerics are fully battle-oriented beasts.

I get turned down on changing even "far scribe". He says "playing arena is just to have fun, not to have competitive goals or a desire to smash everyone". Yeah right. It's like saying "PvP is not about PvP". What does this even mean? You're going to obliterate my character and I'm supposed to find it fun?

He asks for feedback after every single game, like a "sprint retrospective" in Agile. In my last ditch attempt, I asked very explicitly to introduce custom items sometimes. He says "I don't like custom items, don't like inventing them, I'm not interested. I like encounters and that's what I'll keep working on".

I don't know why he asks for feedback if he then ignores it. I noticed he takes critique personally, so I stopped giving it anyway.

This thread is becoming a "whine about your DM" thread for me, I think. I gotta stop. I'm probably going to drop out soon.

 

[Sacibengala]

This thread is becoming a "whine about your DM" thread for me, I think. I gotta stop. I'm probably going to drop out soon.

You should stop playing childish games with a child DM and start playing grownup games with a grownup DM, like Adnd1e. You're welcome.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I'm heavily social-oriented.
Meanwhile our clerics are fully battle-oriented beasts.

Should have rolled a barbarian

 

[J1M]

Use far scribe to bombard everyone else with thousands of psychic messages per round, incapacitating them.

 

[JamesDixon]

Why would anyone try 4e? There are much better board games in the market.

I told my GM a lot of people say DND 5e is bad. He said "who? go on reddit, people love it".
I said "I hang around places where people say they're proud of never having even touched 4 and 5e". He says "well, see? they haven't even tried it, how would they know".

I didn't even answer anything. It's the whole "should you try shit to make sure it tastes bad" argument. The more I play with this DM, the more I learn to just stay silent.

I don't have to try a plate of feces to know it's bad for you.

 

[Bester]

I quit, but holy fuck was this difficult. People sure are weird social animals. It was like quitting a job, which I'm also terrible at.

It's probably some evolutionary mechanism telling you not to quit a group, because on your own you won't survive. Those who did quit - died.

 

[Bohrain]

Some people just aren't compatible with each other.

 

[Cohesion]

He asks for feedback after every single game, like a "sprint retrospective" in Agile.

Lol you're fucked thoroughly if you use this shit at work.
But don't worry, you can always hire some kanban masters and become fucked even more

 

[Caim]

Earlier this week some 1100 people were fired from Hasbro to "keep the company healthy". One of the victims was Mike Mearls, one of the lead designers of 5e. You know, this guy:

 

[Gyor]

Earlier this week some 1100 people were fired from Hasbro to "keep the company healthy". One of the victims was Mike Mearls, one of the lead designers of 5e. You know, this guy:

Okay that was an asshole post, but it's still now good to let the do who made your most profitable edition, helped guide the creation of your most profitable video game, and helped made your most profitable D&D MtG crossover set go. It looks bad to investors and the media.

 

[Gyor]

They finally release a mostly complete map of Faerun with like the names of major nations and it and stuff, and the assholes locked it behind a $130usd Lore & Legends: Special Edition product, like the only fucking part of the product that actually matters is the map (the book is self is giant puff piece filled with 5e art, I wasn't impressed by the die).

Although the fact that they did this map at all, is probably a sign that they are doing a proper 5e FR product after all eventually, because outside of that basic 3 quarters of Faerun map in the SCAG that didn't list nations, just a few region names, they have refused to do a Faerun map at all in 5e.

 

[Caim]

Earlier this week some 1100 people were fired from Hasbro to "keep the company healthy". One of the victims was Mike Mearls, one of the lead designers of 5e. You know, this guy:

Okay that was an asshole post, but it's still now good to let the do who made your most profitable edition, helped guide the creation of your most profitable video game, and helped made your most profitable D&D MtG crossover set go. It looks bad to investors and the media.

Bro are you having a stroke.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Earlier this week some 1100 people were fired from Hasbro to "keep the company healthy". One of the victims was Mike Mearls, one of the lead designers of 5e. You know, this guy:

Okay that was an asshole post, but it's still not good to let the guy- who made your most profitable edition, helped guide the creation of your most profitable video game, and helped made your most profitable D&D MtG crossover set -go. It looks bad to investors and the media.

Bro are you having a stroke.

It's fairly comprehensible, if a bit phone posted.

 

[Silva]

They finally release a mostly complete map of Faerun with like the names of major nations and it and stuff, and the assholes locked it behind a $130usd Lore & Legends: Special Edition product, like the only fucking part of the product that actually matters is the map (the book is self is giant puff piece filled with 5e art, I wasn't impressed by the die).

Although the fact that they did this map at all, is probably a sign that they are doing a proper 5e FR product after all eventually, because outside of that basic 3 quarters of Faerun map in the SCAG that didn't list nations, just a few region names, they have refused to do a Faerun map at all in 5e.

Who cares, FR is shit.

 

[Mortmal]

It's the whole WOTC that is shit, not FR. Wokeness is even the least of its concerns. It's a soulless corporation; their discords are dystopian hellholes of inane discussions with overzealous moderation bots. Their products? Anything they released recently was shit. Then I don't think firing all those people, before Christmas to boot, will improve it.

 

[Larianshill]

https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/1bhx0a5/what_would_your_first_instinct_be_when_fighting/

 

[ind33d]

Why would anyone try 4e? There are much better board games in the market.

I told my GM a lot of people say DND 5e is bad. He said "who? go on reddit, people love it".
I said "I hang around places where people say they're proud of never having even touched 4 and 5e". He says "well, see? they haven't even tried it, how would they know".

I didn't even answer anything. It's the whole "should you try shit to make sure it tastes bad" argument. The more I play with this DM, the more I learn to just stay silent.

The issue with this applied to 4e is that most people who actually played it (earnestly, not by trying to prove something or purposely ignoring entire chapters of the rules) enjoyed it.

The majority of criticisms in contemporary reviews and forum discussions about 4e are factually wrong.

Every aspect of 4e is geared towards a board game rather than an RPG. Stuff like "per encounter" and "per day" abilities, being able to change your abilities by re-specing in level ups, etc. That stuff doesn't make any sense in whatever imaginary world you can conceive, unless it is specifically made to look like a "game world". Most people, on seeing this stuff, won't even try to play because that is a completely different idea than even 3e. 3e was focused on builds, but they were still supposed to exist in a world where you could, in theory, attempt anything. Character abilities still were supposed to be aspects of the setting rather than simply actions the game allowed you to do. So even people who really liked 3e would be put off by 4e. Yeah, I never tried 4e, and I don't intend to. If I wanted to, I would look for someone to play Gloomhaven with instead, which seems more interesting anyway.

The flaw in this logic is that the wildly popular 5e has those same elements. It just renamed them. Also, casters regain spells after a long rest in 3.5 too, so that's quite the tricky line to walk between "extremely popular" and "refused on principle" according to your theory.

I have a different theory: almost every reason people give about why they never gave 4e a fair shot is a rationalization. The real reason is poor choices in terms of character artwork and book layout by the new senior art director, Stacy Longstreet. I would go so far to say as every artistic decision made except for the visual language on the book spines was some form of a mistake.

Other contributing 4e missteps include: releasing a new edition during a time of economic downturn and trying to drastically alter existing settings, thereby giving people lore reasons to reject the ruleset.

4e was incredible if you used chits to track all the stupid status effects. You could also play on a whiteboard and write "stunned" or "turned gay for d6 rounds" next to the miniatures. I think most people just weren't using counters. It figures fucking Wizards would make stickers legal in Magic: the Gathering cash tournaments but not use stickers for tracking 4e's thousands of modifiers. Truly big brain game design

 

[gurugeorge]

4e was incredible if you used chits to track all the stupid status effects. You could also play on a whiteboard and write "stunned" or "turned gay for d6 rounds" next to the miniatures. I think most people just weren't using counters. It figures fucking Wizards would make stickers legal in Magic: the Gathering cash tournaments but not use stickers for tracking 4e's thousands of modifiers. Truly big brain game design

"turned gay for d6 rounds"

That should be a thing. Or is it a thing already? It should be a thing.

 

[Caim]

4e was incredible if you used chits to track all the stupid status effects. You could also play on a whiteboard and write "stunned" or "turned gay for d6 rounds" next to the miniatures. I think most people just weren't using counters. It figures fucking Wizards would make stickers legal in Magic: the Gathering cash tournaments but not use stickers for tracking 4e's thousands of modifiers. Truly big brain game design

"turned gay for d6 rounds"

That should be a thing. Or is it a thing already? It should be a thing.

You have heard of Turn Undead, now get ready for...

Turn Gay.

 

[J1M]

Isn't the gender bender belt basically this? (And part of the game for 40 years?)

 

[I eat frozen vegetables]

4e was incredible if you used chits to track all the stupid status effects. You could also play on a whiteboard and write "stunned" or "turned gay for d6 rounds" next to the miniatures. I think most people just weren't using counters. It figures fucking Wizards would make stickers legal in Magic: the Gathering cash tournaments but not use stickers for tracking 4e's thousands of modifiers. Truly big brain game design

"turned gay for d6 rounds"

That should be a thing. Or is it a thing already? It should be a thing.

You have heard of Turn Undead, now get ready for...

Turn Gay.

Can't wait for straight conversion spells.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/1bhx0a5/what_would_your_first_instinct_be_when_fighting/

This is viable for ALL alignments and stairs are everywhere.

 

[lightbane]

Can't wait for straight conversion spells.

What happens if you curse someone who's gay with a "Become Gay" spell? Does he become straight?