D&D 5e has failed

[Lago PARANOIA]

5th edition is therapy edition. And it seems to me to succeed wildly at it, if online reviews in fora and on Amazon are any indication. It literally does not matter what type of game the rules (or lack thereof) facilitate. This is an edition purely there to vindicate and placate highly specific segments of a self-perceivedly disenfranchised playerbase. The only significant discussion on the rules text to emerge all summer was about some bullshit, throw away reference about gender orientation and how you can play "that dwarf" any way you want. That is all you need to ever know about this edition as a text. I was initially highly disappointed that the Den failed to give a much more thorough walk through across the 5e rules books (even the MM thread is mostly impressionistic, nothing like the Angry Drunken Reviews of old), but now I understand - there is literally nothing there for such critical energies to latch onto.

That's right. 4E D&D inspired an explosion of activity for the first year, because while it was a fuck-up it at least tried to fuck-up in entirely new ways. 5E D&D fucks up less because it's much less adventurous, and what's more 5E D&D's fuck-ups were already solved problems. A hole in the rules will surely hurt a game as much as a set of bad rules, but what can you really say? '5E D&D should've had more comprehensive rules for stealth.' '5E D&D should've came packaged with a good default campaign setting.' '5E D&D shouldn't have dropped the feat system.' The best you can do in these instances is making a comparison of the edition in relation to what a previous edition did better, but that gets old fast; especially when the fuck-up isn't spectacular.

The rules-set of 4E D&D gave us a ton of lessons for future devs to learn from. We now know how you can fuck up skill challenges and standardizing class advancement and wishlists and Always Fighting Orcs. If 5E D&D goes down... what exactly would we have learned that we didn't already know? Mike Mearls is an enormous fuck-up? Project management isn't just for academia and businessmen and is vital to meeting deadlines? That when you have a new edition, you need to come up with a better pitch than 'slightly improved from what came 12 years before?' That the opinion of one coherent critic is better than that of five raving fanboys? What?

[Night Goat]

I'm baffled by the seeming lack of any upcoming products that aren't related to that Tranny of Dragons thing no one cares about. You'd think they'd at least have some setting books in the pipeline, in case someone wants to use the default setting without tracking down a 13 year old book.

[mean_liar]

It only matters that not too many rules are there (and those that are, are worded briefly), to cloud "theatre of the mind". It's the perfect Mearls edition - a game that needs no precise rules to write up because precise rules only ruin "the feel". Observe it's a text friendly edition - we still have hundreds of hundreds of pages with game text, but they are more or less window dressing and there to facilitate "that loving feeling" that D&D obviously lost along the way.

It may very well be that 5e as the "nostalgia word salad" edition exactly plays to Mearls' strengths as a writer sufficiently that the game gets traction with a large player base regardless of its mechanical paucity, and cements his place at the top for the edition' run and perhaps the next.

We all know that Denners do not generally play games like other people, and we could just be Charlton Heston screaming at the Statue of Liberty about how they've finally made a game that's not much of a game at all. If players are liking the edition then it might still be a bland game, but a bland game that's a successful edition.

[Krusk]

The current popular thread to make on both the DM and player forums over at WoTC is some variant on "Hiding, how does it work?". I read a few first responses and the consensus seems to be "Your dm has to house rule something. This is a good thing".

[ACOS]

The current popular thread to make on both the DM and player forums over at WoTC is some variant on "Hiding, how does it work?". I read a few first responses and the consensus seems to be "Your dm has to house rule something. This is a good thing".

I think God just killed a kitten.

[ACOS]

So, I've been thinking about this, and something has occurred to me. It would appear that this whole idea of "make shit up as you go along" rules (non)design - aside from being lazy - is operating on the fundamental assumption of the "reasonable person standard"; which, in order to operate well at the game table, requires everyone to share similar perspectives and compatible motives.
This outright fails flat on its face. "Reasonable person" is hard enough to adjudicate when dealing with the general population; but when you add in asymmetric authority with the disproportionate # of socially maladjusted asshats that permeate this hobby, that paradigm actively encourages maladaptive behavior. You're blatantly asking for knock-down drag-out fights at the table.
But yet, that's supposed to be a "feature".

[Ghremdal]

I think there is virtually no chance of 5e succeeding the way 3e did, and I am willing to bet real world money that it won't even match 4e.

They abandoned their splatbook a month model and are going with adventure paths. While that is a move I agree with, it carries a inherent risk in that if the paths are not good then their whole strategy will fail. Actually scratch that last sentence, the paths don't have to be good, they just have to excite people.

What I am seeing so far is that aside from a couple of die hard 5tards no one gives two shits about the Path of Dragons. And from what I gather its due to two things. One, that it is genuinely bad, and two, there is no official setting coming out with the PHB/DMG to support the path.

[Lago PARANOIA]

What I am seeing so far is that aside from a couple of die hard 5tards no one gives two shits about the Path of Dragons. And from what I gather its due to two things. One, that it is genuinely bad, and two, there is no official setting coming out with the PHB/DMG to support the path.

Path of Dragons so far isn't getting very good reviews. It's not as overwhelmingly negative as Keep on the Shadowfell, but if WotC was planning on making their bones through through APs that is extremely discouraging news.

Also, see that part in bold? You'd think that the devs would be smart enough to realize this. I mean, few people even gave a shit about Marauders of the Dune Sea, but even fewer people would've cared if it wasn't a Dark Sun module. So what made a guy who bragged that Points of Light and Nentir Vale meant not having to do as much campaign design work decide to go down this path eludes me.

But then again, 5E D&D was never going to shape up to be anything more than 'Mike Mearls Gets Three Years of Corporate Welfare' Edition. I have no clue why Hasbro hasn't fired this leech yet. He must be able to get a tongue at least four inches into someone's asshole, that's the only explanation.

[ishy]

Can you link to an in-depth review of path of dragons?

[Lago PARANOIA]

I'm sorry, I should have said Tyranny of Dragons, not Path of Dragons. I fucked that one up.

Here are some reviews for Hoard of the Dragon Queen:
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/16/16162.phtml

I see a few major issues with the adventure. First, it’s generic. It’s very non-specific, so much so that it seems like the designers are actually afraid of offering details. They will provide reams of data on the over-arching story and plot but then when you get to the actual adventure there are words like “throw a couple of encounters at the players” … with nothing else present. Or they clearly have an idea of how the adventure should proceed, like with the lizard man allies in episode 6, but are terrified of being accused of railroading. This extends to the descriptions, which are almost universally uninspiring. They feel flat and boring. The magic items are completely generic “ 1 sword”, and the titular HOARD of the Dragon Queen is actually abstracted throughout most of the adventure. The text does not inspire you, the DM, and that may be the most important sin.
...
Like I said earlier, I could quibble with the nature of how the episodes are done, and make comments on how they could be less railroady … but … ok, I guess I just did. The GENERIC content though is what breaks this. There is something that quite literally looks like a skill challenge. To sneak through town you need to make stealth checks. For every two you have a random encounter. Ok, that’s not bad. It even makes sense! But then the encounters … ug! 6 kobolds. 6 cultists. 2 cultists and an acolyte. That’s what passes for CREATIVE CONTENT from Wolfgang & Winter.

http://thegaminggang.com/rpgs/they-shou ... s-dragons/

While one would think the release of the latest edition of Dungeons & Dragons would have led Wizards of the Coast to make sure the first adventure for 5th Edition was a real barn burner, the unfortunate truth is nearly the exact opposite has taken place. Or, in other words, after releasing a pretty impressive Player’s Handbook at Gen Con and just prior to last week’s also well-presented Monster Manual WotC decided to dump a real dog on the public in Hoard of the Dragon Queen. Lots of folks were eagerly anticipating this adventure and I’m afraid there are going to be a lot of disappointed buyers out there.

At first glance Hoard of the Dragon Queen looks like a high quality production with a good amount of art but not to the point where you aren’t getting enough text bang for the buck. Upon further inspection though you’ll begin to notice some problems with the book’s presentation. Maybe I got my hands on an early print run or something but I swear all the artwork and maps look sort of muddied and blurred. I was also surprised to see a different paper stock used than in the Player’s Handbook; the Handbook has a slicker paper stock whereas the adventure book uses a more matted finish. It isn’t as if you can’t make out the images but they’re certainly missing the same pop as you’ll find with the Player’s Handbook and Monster Manual.

http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/sea ... on%20Queen
This one is less relentlessly negative than the other two reviews and in fact goes into a very in-depth discussion about how to fix this module's problems.

[tussock]

It is very important that everyone understands this: progress is the natural state of human affairs.

That's not a natural state, it's an emergent property of productive investment in capital.

Because people can totally just invest all their returns and resources into inflexible things which cannot possibly produce and then have nothing to eat and die. Now, historically those people are dead, and they have no descendants, so it's still a world which strongly favours the good investment strategy in the long run.

But when, for instance, people built millions of houses in the desert under George W. Bush and "sold the risk" to companies who could not cover it, that really did burn trillions of dollars and a great amount of once-only resources forever. The rest of society did well enough to cover that loss, sure, but there's no particular reason for that to be true into the future (nor at any particular time in the past).

Productive investment compounds, and beats out any lack of progress. But if, for instance, just say, the last of your surplus cheap oil was burnt digging up more cheap oil and building million-dollar bombs to drop on poor people in oil countries, for a couple generations, rather than powering the switch to solar electric, progress is not something which can just "happen" to overcome that sort of imperial-direction, society-level mistake.

Because the solar doesn't bootstrap. It's self-sustaining only after you build it. You're getting a century of strongly negative growth if you fail to build it with the last of the cheap oil.


Almost like when the Romans poured all their return on a thousand years of capital investment into gigantic standing armies which proceeded to fight bloody civil wars over which emperor would spend more on the armies. And then collapsed because they couldn't even feed themselves. Progress isn't at all inevitable, because the productive investment needed for it simply may not happen.

[ishy]

I'm sorry, I should have said Tyranny of Dragons, not Path of Dragons. I fucked that one up.

Here are some reviews for Hoard of the Dragon Queen:
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/16/16162.phtml

Thanks, that review was just what I was looking for. Also contains a lot of advice for how to write your own adventure path.

It made me wonder though, they wanted the adventure paths to support all editions of D&D, right?
Do they actually try to do that? Does the adventure path suffer from it? Or have they given up on that from the start, because they realized it wasn't feasible?

[DSMatticus]

You are the stupidest person, tussock. I'm not going to limit the scope of that, I'm just going to let it stand as is. It's not just that everything you say is stupid, but that they are Gordian knots of stupid that leave me completely bewildered as to where to even begin. After hearing you speak Alexander the Great would stab you and triumphantly declare the puzzle solved.

I'm going to follow in that spirit and ignore basically everything you just said and cut to the core problem: the fundamental stupid here is that for some reason you read "progress is the natural state of human affairs" and assumed that meant "progress never fails to happen on any interval." I don't know how you got that, and considering the very first sentence of the post you are responding to contains a specific claim about an instance of unprogress, it was wrong. It was obviously wrong. And now you've been corrected.

[Ferret]

I'm sorry, I should have said Tyranny of Dragons, not Path of Dragons. I fucked that one up.

Here are some reviews for Hoard of the Dragon Queen:
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/16/16162.phtml

Thanks, that review was just what I was looking for. Also contains a lot of advice for how to write your own adventure path.

It made me wonder though, they wanted the adventure paths to support all editions of D&D, right?
Do they actually try to do that? Does the adventure path suffer from it? Or have they given up on that from the start, because they realized it wasn't feasible?

They give up on it at the start. The "support all editions" mantra just means "don't use skills or feats if you want 1e/2e feeling, and disallow the Eldritch Knight and Battlemaster fighter archtypes."

The only thing to add to the discussion is that Tyranny of Dragons lacks a dedicated Adventurer's Handbook product which all the following storylines will have - so we'll get 2 player-facing books per year, tied to the module of the season. The next one, released in March 2015 is "Princes of the Apocalypse" developed by Sasquatch Studios. This is going to revisit the Elder Elemental Eye / Temple of Elemental Evil story, and will be accompanied by an Adventurer's Handbook containing "everything that players need to build a character that is tied directly into the Elemental Evil story arc, with skills, abilities, and spells meant to augment their play experience throughout the campaign. Additionally, valuable background and story information provides greater depth and immersion.

An accessory that expands the number of options available for character creation for the Elemental Evil story arc, providing expanded backgrounds, class builds, and races meant specifically for this campaign."

Presumably we'll see the second module book come out in June, then whatever the next storyline is will start in September, with another Adventure book and Adventurer's Handbook.

[Insomniac]

Tranny of Dragons is a relentlessly bland slogfest against random encounters of bullywogs, kobolds and lizardfolk.

It certainly is nowhere near the Pathfinder-style adventure path thing they were going for. It is mediocre bordering on being a real stinker.

The CRs are just random as hell, everything looks like an asspull. 7th level foes being CR 3, encounters set up to be undefeatable 1 on 1 combats that happen over and over again because it is clearly one of the author's pet NPCs, etc. Just really lame all over.

[Ravengm]

Tranny of Dragons is a relentlessly bland slogfest against random encounters of bullywogs, kobolds and lizardfolk.

It certainly is nowhere near the Pathfinder-style adventure path thing they were going for. It is mediocre bordering on being a real stinker.

The CRs are just random as hell, everything looks like an asspull. 7th level foes being CR 3, encounters set up to be undefeatable 1 on 1 combats that happen over and over again because it is clearly one of the author's pet NPCs, etc. Just really lame all over.

This sounds awful enough for an angry drunk review, which I look forward to maybe happening.

[Insomniac]

Also, the adventure assumes that there will be villagers all over the place but it also assumes that the PCs will not be able to save all of them (they almost certainly will not) and it just puts a wet blanket on the entire module.

Nothing says heroism like powerlessly watching dozens of innocents get murdered. It has numerous places where it suggests XP reduction for letting 10 or more villagers get killed in multiple encounters.

The one on one encounter against a 17 AC, 60 HP foe with a 4d10 breath weapon where it is presumed that at least one PC will get "killed" but revived by villagers happens on page 12. Nothing says heroism like setting up a PC quasi-death in 1 on 1 combat against an author's pet NPC at level 1 30 minutes into the session.

There are all sorts of fuckover moments like siccing 95 HP ropers against level 2 or 3 characters, Otyughs in water pits to force drowning checks that most PCs cannot pass, etc.

[Dogbert]

It's basically Truth in Advertising, the tranny of dragons is everything 5E stands for, and confronts you with that. It's a neckbeard, anti-player Tour-de-Force where Wolfgang Baur forces you to stare into the neckbeard abyss as he breaks the seven seals.

If I wanted to be charitable to mr. Baur, I'd say that he offers new players a truthful sales brochure on everything 5E so you can just say "fuck that noise" and skip on this edition before you waste an additional $150 USD.

[Grek]

Do you absolutely have to call it Tranny of the Dragons? That's seriously as offensive as [EDITED] Realms or Tomb of the [EDITED] King or Ravenloft II: House on Gaywad Hill.

[erik]

I was pondering how I felt about using Tranny as a twist on the name, especially since it didn't seem to be related to this:

or this

Well it needs some sort of denigrating name, clearly. I'd say Tranny of Dragons is 50 millinazis less offensive than whatever the [EDITED] examples were, but we can still do better.

Tyranny of 5e?
Tyranny of Dragon5?

[Insomniac]

Do you absolutely have to call it Tranny of the Dragons? That's seriously as offensive as [EDITED] Realms or Tomb of the [EDITED] King or Ravenloft II: House on Gaywad Hill.

I think it was just a board-joke from some guy who went to a convention and he reported that he saw something about "The Tranny of Dragons."

Wasn't ever intended to be offensive. Though it does make "The Rise of Tiamat" a more interesting name for their next module.

[Grek]

"Bundle Of Sticks"-ery Realms and "Negro" King respectively. It's a transphobic slur and that's just as fucking bad as a racial or homophobic one.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Kakistocracy of Dragons.

[DSMatticus]

Tranny of the Dragonsis is just a typo that stuck because it was hilarious, and I stand by that typo being hilarious. But I do agree that absent context people who read that might think it is intended as derogatory, and as much as it pains me I am amenable to calls to abandon it.

[TiaC]

Tyranny of the DM?