Zero Buzz on 5E...Is It Dead Out The Gate?

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 8:55 pm

GnomeWorks: Doesn't actually gain you anything over racial feats.

GnomeWorks · Post by **GnomeWorks** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 9:15 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:That is, you either have a combinatorial explosion of possibilities for little gameplay gain or you're forced to Captain Hobo it.

I'm not familiar with the Captain Hobo thing.

But what I was getting at was not having racial abilities tied to class. So the fairy has say a menu of abilities they can get at 4th level, another menu at 8th, etc. So does the ogre. These abilities are distinct from class; they're independent of it. Their purpose is to enhance the "you're a $race" thing.

I mean, yes, combinatorially-speaking there's still a lot of work there. You have to make sure each race's abilities don't break when added to a particular class. But you should be able to just balance the races against each other, then make sure they're not breaking classes. But it's not nearly as much work as having individualized abilities for every race for each class.

Ancient History wrote:GnomeWorks: Doesn't actually gain you anything over racial feats.

Feats are optional; not everyone takes them.

The point of doing it this way would be to ensure that every fairy "feels" like a fairy; every ogre "feels" like an ogre. All regardless of class. You make racial stuff part of the standard character progression, rather than half-assing it.

I mean, I guess you either have to commit to race mattering, or commit to it not really mattering. Giving the option for a character to spend resources on gaining abilities relevant to their race is cool as well, which makes for a useful middle ground (some people will care, others will not), but that doesn't change that at the class/race level, you need to figure out if you care about race or not.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 9:21 pm

Basically there are two problems with dragging racial abilities out along your progression. The first is optimization complexity, and the second is theme dilution.

For the first, imagine the living nightmare it would be to playtest races that got a new power every four levels. You couldn't do it. You're already straying to test 77 race/class combinations and 20 levels of play. If the races change in synergy every four levels, you have 385 combinations to worry about. Plus 55 more for every horde race you add in the back of the mm. You're going to end up seeing optimization advice like “if you're going to play an illusionist of at least 12th level, you need to be a doppleganger." And honestly: fuck that.

For the second, imagine two paragon tier dudes, either one of whom might have originally been written up as a human or an orc. The first is a Hercules expy whose fucking class is 'demigod,' and the second is an Angmar expy whose class is 'witch king.' In either case, do you honestly give a shit which race they picked at first level? Why the fuck would you?

-Username17

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 9:29 pm

On Tieflings, there's also the "iconic" tiefling character from Paizo's Age of Worms adventure path, who was drawn well pretty consistently

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Mialee looked awful in almost every picture in 3rd Edition artwork, though, so maybe it's just truth in advertising. And I wouldn't mind her looking so dumpy if she was dressed properly and the game didn't try to sex her up so often.

What I'd heard, and am reasonably certain the Starter Box bore out, was that Mialee was an example of a wizard who dumped Charisma. This doesn't explain her clothes, but it explains her appearance over all. Though I do seem to recall there were at least a couple pictures of Mialee where she did look attractive (but then, that can come down to taste).

But on the whole, 3rd Edition D&D really dropped the ball with the iconics I feel. I think the only ones who didn't make me facepalm were Lidda and Tordek and I didn't even like most of their pictures. The d20 Modern iconics were better than those jokers -- how sad is that?

I also like Hennet, though, sadly, the rules didn't really support a sorcerer having draconic/demonic traits just for being a sorcerer.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 11:44 pm

Look this has been discussed a lot before. I'm pretty sure there have only been two or three solutions that even began to stand up to scrutiny.

1) The Inferior One
Races are classes. You only get one class for a race. It looks like your standard monster entry in the MM when it caps out at it's top level. You have to magically fill in the gaps to figure out it's progression before that, good luck making that work.

It has the distinct disadvantage of proceeding to progress after it's level cap with multi-classing so your multiclassing system had better be able to make 1 level of Paladin grant features an 11th level character with 10 levels of killer tortoise behind it. And if you want flexibility it had better be able to do that with 1 level of Wizard on the 10 levels of killer tortoise AS WELL.

Advantage wise though at least all your monsters are traditional MM entries at level cap and you don't have to rewrite the MM. Of course not rewriting the MM is probably a bad thing because even at their level caps those Monster Classes have abilities not well suited to PCs... but whatever...

Unfortunately it's still pretty damn impractical to write this as a patch to any 3.x D&D system. Even breaking all the monsters into level by level progressions for their monster classes is way to much work, undermined by hit die not being equal to level and monster abilities being wildly variable shite. And you pretty much can't solve the multiclassing issues as monster characters try to transition back into normal society at the end of their exile to sub-standard racial classes. Not with a simple 3.x patch.

2) The Good One
ALL race abilities are bought with a generic standard advancement resource, like feats. This resource can ALSO be spent on non-race specific options that are equal good for any archetype. A level 1 Barbarian gains this resource and can buy "something for being an Orc" OR can buy "something that is also still good and not to do with being an Orc" a Level 10 wizard can buy "Something for being a Demon" or "Something that is also still good and not to do with being a demon".

Ideally within this system ALL monsters and ALL level advancement now uses standardized classes and then spends this resource on racial options. And ALL your MM entries are built off things like "Sphagnum Bog Giant, X Levels of Barbarian, with the following racial options taken through advancement..."

On the plus side you now have genuine flexibility. You take those options from your "race" that help you with your character build, you don't take the other ones. Your fairy CAN be a berserker OR a trickster.

The disadvantage is you need to rewrite the MM from the ground up. You need to work feats, or something like them into a more important and potent resource. You need to write up all your monster powas as options for that resource. You need to write up a bunch of other non-monster powas as options for that resource and make them as good as monsta powas. It's a lot of material and if you are attempting a 3.x patch you have thrown a very large chunk of 3.x out the window before even starting it.

3) The Crappy 3.x Patch One
You only offer monster options to characters in the following contexts.

1) Your monster/race is LA 0
2) Your monster is a fighter type, you are already it's level or higher, and you can (and WILL) advance it with fighter type hit die without too many multiclassing nut kicks.
3) Your monster is a caster type that gets "casts as caster type X", you are already it's level or higher, and you can (and WILL) advance that with levels of that caster class without too many multiclassing nut kicks.
4) Two or Three yet again, but with contiguous like Rogue advancement or some other crap.

And ideally 2 thru 4 have you actually at your level in advancement in your class abilities (or at least even close) when you start from your monster class, good luck with that.

This means you have to ignore most monster options or rewrite them. It's inflexible and shitty, and your racial classes set your non-racial class selection and archetypes in stone. But, it works as a 3.x patch and it's the only thing that will.

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Sun Jul 13, 2014 3:09 am

With option 1: The race is a class option doesn't have to make the MM example be the top level example. It could be anywhere on the level chart, as long as the MM thing can be created at some level in the race-class then the race-class will be believed.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Jul 13, 2014 3:19 am

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=346506

Basically, Captain Hobo Syndrome is what you get when you combine number penises with weak flavor, a problem endemic to rules-light or highly-customizable systems. The easiest way to get that to happen in games with exponential scaling like D&D is to attach unqualified bonuses to things with weak flavor. That is exactly how you get silliness like every wizard being a human, strongheart halfling, or grey elf or every rogue being a halfling or dwarf. For example, because the halfling gets a generic +1 bonus with thrown weapons, a halfling will always make a better throw-master of otherwise equal allocation to other races. This is true whether we're talking about throwing rusty daggers and sling bullets or throwing grenades halfway across the city to barrel through the castle walls and land in the throne room. At this level of play, the fact that it matters so much that the master thrower is a halfling is ludicrous.

Frank also mentioned theme dilution. The Law of Conservation of Detail is a real thing. Every moment you spend talking about how you're good at tending to the dogs or keeping the table will eventually lead to a moment where you can't talk about how you prevented your hometown from being pelted by a meteor shower by causing it to phase underground. If you're in a game that posits a shitton of character development -- like D&D -- you as the game designer need to avoid overloading characters with too many relevant details. And again, unless you're a race that inherently scales from level 1 to 20 (like a demon or a robot) you're wasting time talking about crap like Elven Accuracy or Dwarven Toughness.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sun Jul 13, 2014 4:20 am

Lokathor wrote:The race is a class option doesn't have to make the MM example be the top level example.

There is however no conceivable advantage of imagining up and wasting additional work on levels of classes like "things ALL stone giants MUST do later in their career but which you never really see until it turns up to fuck you over and put your character build on inflexible rails for no reason".

It's additional labor and all it does is take you back to the incredibly stupid concept where elf is a full career single class in it's own right, and everyone who dares to write "elf" on their character sheet is bound to the same stupid archetype whether they want it or not.

That is an undesirable outcome. By a long shot. That much should be obvious. Racial classes where you play a game and the classes are "Fighter, Wizard, Elf, Dwarf" are a JOKE these days, a bad joke, for good reasons.

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Sun Jul 13, 2014 5:23 am

PhoneLobster wrote:There is however no conceivable advantage of imagining up and wasting additional work on levels of classes like "things ALL stone giants MUST do later in their career but which you never really see until it turns up to fuck you over and put your character build on inflexible rails for no reason".

But by that argument there's no reason to stat out high levels of Barbarian or Samurai.

Now, this is all assuming Open Multiclassing, but since we do have open multiclassing, not all elves would need to stick to the elf class. Nor would all Stone Giants need to stick to the Stone Giant class. You can just have as many levels in that class as you want and then go elsewhere. If your Minotaur class "should" end at level 8 because that's when you become identical to a mintaor from the MM, well then, as a PC, you don't even need to take those 8 levels in it. You could just take 1 level in it and be the most un-minotaur-like minotaur ever and spend the rest of your levels on Rogue. Really. Go nuts. Or you could level up to 20 in the minotaur class and become some sort of theoretical minotaur-paragon that can do all the things a person would even imagine a minotaur would do and then some.

That's like the entire idea behind True Fiend and Fiendish Brute.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Jul 13, 2014 5:43 am

While classes like elf and dwarf are stupid and insulting, classes like giant, demon, or dragon make a lot more sense. There's no particular reason for there to be a common theme to what a 6th or 12th level dwarf looks like, but there actually are 8th, 9th, and 10th level giants. There is indeed a clear progression of giants from hill to fire, and one could easily imagine this being portrayed in game as being the result of progressing up the giant class.

That being said, I don't think having a giant class is an ideal solution, and would prefer to see giants handled with magic item slots. That is to say that you give characters time style magic item limits and let people fill those slots with time style scaling items. Then for monsters with noticeable power like giants and were boars, you make them sacrifice a number of magic item slots for fixed (but still scaling) racial powers. But then they'd still take normal classes (or NPC classes if they are mooks).

This way, a giant might have only one or two slots dedicated to being large and strong, while something like a dragon might use up almost all of their magic item slots on being a fire breathing, flying, scaled monster. The standard giant progression would basically be NPC fighters with girdles of giant power that didn't come off, and if you wanted to be a frost giant wizard or bog giant paladin, you'd just need to start at the appropriate level and mark off the magic item slots and starting equipment.

This would also let you play a lycanthrope or become one in play. Pay enough for the rituals that you could buy the cloak on animal form and the ring of regeneration and you get to take control of your lycanthropy and stop being 'cursed.'

But when it comes down to it, at quite high levels one would expect both turning into a rat and regeneration to come from a single major item rather than two medium items - so the number of slots you have to give up to be various types of monster would be expected to drop at high levels.

-Username17

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Sun Jul 13, 2014 6:02 am

Part of it depends how your monsters are in the first place. An AD&D Minotaur is a mythological concept monster with really simple stats that plays out like much like any other monster, only in a maze, woooooo. While a 4e Minotaur is a pile of random noise mechanics which vaguely reminded someone of how far away Friday was at some point.

One of those is much easier to turn into a Fighter with a feat, and the other is much easier to turn into a pile of arbitrarily selectable level-appropriate "Minotaur" mechanics for any class.

One might note 4e ended up rather flavourless and stodgy despite (or perhaps, because of) the piles of unique mechanics for every monster. Depends what you want for monsters, an interesting in-world story you can tell with normative mechanics, or an interesting game-piece for your miniatures battle session.

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Sun Jul 13, 2014 6:49 am

Frank are you still posting from your phone or whatever?

Because I want a time style scaling magic item in my dnd game.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Jul 13, 2014 7:01 am

Lokathor wrote:Frank are you still posting from your phone or whatever?

Because I want a time style scaling magic item in my dnd game.

Yeah, supposedly I will have a new computer on Wednesday, and should be able to find out how much of my writings from the last five years are recoverable then. It's too much work to do even a simple table on the nexus.

-Username17

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jul 14, 2014 1:20 am

tumblr's gotten a look at the Basic Rules' statement on "your character's gender/sex/orientation are entirely up to you" and... ugh. 5E will be popular purely for that. It's the only good thing I've seen so far from 5e, and knowing the sort of person who posts on tumblr about that, it will bouy 5e's popularity despite shite rules.

If only their rules could be as advanced as their gender attitudes, but then, looking at Zak, those seem to be mutually exclusive.

Cyberzombie · Post by **Cyberzombie** » Mon Jul 14, 2014 1:44 am

tussock wrote: One might note 4e ended up rather flavourless and stodgy despite (or perhaps, because of) the piles of unique mechanics for every monster. Depends what you want for monsters, an interesting in-world story you can tell with normative mechanics, or an interesting game-piece for your miniatures battle session.

Yeah, the big problem with 4E was that there was too many unique mechanics and too many monsters, so you couldn't actually plan for any of it. Because you'd have 3 different kinds of medusas or basilisks and they'd all have different roles and totally different working abilities. None of them were particularly memorable enough for you to really care and your characters didn't have any actual ability to change tactics anyway so every combat entailed you doing the same crap you always do.

It's much better going with a monster with a few memorable abilities, like a mind flayers mind blast cone or a wight's energy drain rather than trying to give them a lot of things. It's easier for the DM to remember if you keep it simple and it helps PCs to remember the monster.

sarcasmoverdose · Post by **sarcasmoverdose** » Mon Jul 14, 2014 1:45 am

Prak_Anima wrote:tumblr's gotten a look at the Basic Rules' statement on "your character's gender/sex/orientation are entirely up to you" and... ugh. 5E will be popular purely for that. It's the only good thing I've seen so far from 5e, and knowing the sort of person who posts on tumblr about that, it will bouy 5e's popularity despite shite rules.

If only their rules could be as advanced as their gender attitudes, but then, looking at Zak, those seem to be mutually exclusive.

As written that little tidbit belonged in an FAQ/company statement policy, not in the core rules section. Being pro-GBLT isn't "progressive" or "advanced" in modern western democracies, it's mainstream.

DragonChild · Post by **DragonChild** » Mon Jul 14, 2014 1:49 am

Prak_Anima wrote:tumblr's gotten a look at the Basic Rules' statement on "your character's gender/sex/orientation are entirely up to you" and... ugh. 5E will be popular purely for that. It's the only good thing I've seen so far from 5e, and knowing the sort of person who posts on tumblr about that, it will bouy 5e's popularity despite shite rules.

If only their rules could be as advanced as their gender attitudes, but then, looking at Zak, those seem to be mutually exclusive.

Not from what I've seen - there's been a lot of discussion over the text and how it's pretty lackluster, and worded very sloppily, as well as a pretty strong dislike for some of the people involved as consultants.

The people I've seen who seem to be supporting 5e the most are the sexist, harassing asswipes who freely call people gendered slurs thinking it wins debates.

sarcasmoverdose · Post by **sarcasmoverdose** » Mon Jul 14, 2014 1:55 am

DragonChild wrote: The people I've seen who seem to be supporting 5e the most are the sexist, harassing asswipes who freely call people gendered slurs thinking it wins debates.

In other words, Tumblr supports it?

Sakuya Izayoi · Post by **Sakuya Izayoi** » Mon Jul 14, 2014 1:56 am

I like the "it's a game, who cares" justification better than the "well if potions can change your gender, maybe attitudes are more 21st century than medieval in Golarion." People are still working as subsistence farmers instead of buying golems, I doubt they're all that progressive.

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Mon Jul 14, 2014 1:59 am

sarcasmoverdose wrote:
DragonChild wrote: The people I've seen who seem to be supporting 5e the most are the sexist, harassing asswipes who freely call people gendered slurs thinking it wins debates.
In other words, Tumblr supports it?

Ba dum tss

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Jul 14, 2014 5:04 pm

So. Here's a prediction I made ten months ago.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:To go back to the original OP's question, I'm putting my money on 'flops, and flops immediately'. I'm sure it'll be the top-selling TTRPG of the month but only for lack of competition. But the writing will be on the wall after three months, maximum.

It has all of the problems of 4E D&D, with a few additional ones.

Unlike 4E D&D, it's not being packaged with some first or second-party software to sweeten the deal. The Virtual Tabletop looked rad as hell and even though I was skeptical of the edition at first I hung on for a couple of years in hopes of getting to see it to completion. Hell, I bought a subscription to DDI just in hopes of getting to do the beta test for it. No dice. This is the 21st century and I agree with other people that any major TTRPG release has to have some kind of digital support these days to be taken seriously.

5E D&D does not have a good pre-existing campaign to go along with it. You'd think that Mike Mearls would've learned that the campaign setting is by far the most important part of a TTRPG by now. If 5E D&D had a really good default campaign setting, he could probably get 4-5 years out of the product while releasing the rules that he currently has. But no.

It has no pre-existing settings to back it up. 4E D&D killed the Forgotten Realms in the cradle, but up until that point there was no reason to believe that FR was going to die anytime soon. It had a hugely successful 3E D&D run and was coming fresh off the Neverwinter Nights 2 trilogy. 5E D&D has nothing going for it.

Few new ideas. Oh, it has a couple of old ideas repackaged as new ones like modular game design, but aside from bounded accuracy everything I've heard or seen about the edition has been a rehash of Shit We've Already Seen. Not to say that the 'same, but more refined' strategy is a necessarily unfruitful one but if you're not going to cater to pre-existing fans nor are you going to try to pull in a new audience with a new pitch, then who the hell is supposed to enjoy your edition?

5E D&D is shedding people faster than Enron in its final months. Seriously, they've lost their number two and number three and the edition isn't set to be released for a few months. And they didn't lose them due to firings or because they found gainful opportunities -- Monte Cook and Bruce Cordell made it clear that extended unemployment was better for their careers than being associated with 5E D&D. Even if 5E D&D did manage to beat all odds and succeed, convincing people to stop bailing out, the working environment would be a shambles just from turnover.

No clear release strategy. 4E D&D's release strategy was stupid and unrealistic, but at least they had one: pump out massive amounts of shovelware expansion material so that you had some kind of major release every six months, use the DDI for playtesting and to retain fans between book releases, and use the GSL to pump more money from their fans. Only one aspect of that strategy seemed to have any kind of success, but at least they had one.

What exactly is 5E D&D's plan? Are they going to re-rollout the old SRD and hope that other 3rd party developers save them? Are they going to go with the old shovelware approach or bundle up all of their 'A-game' material into infrequent but quality releases?

4E D&D, including 4.5E, lasted for a bit less than 4 years, right? I'm putting 5E D&D's death at a little over a year after its release.

Of course, I very foolishly assumed that the game was coming out earlier than it did, but from what I've seen the basic calculus of the game hasn't changed. It has all of the problems that 4E D&D has and it added a few more problems. The only advantage that it has over 4E D&D in fact is that more of the rules are available on the web for preview.

Mistborn · Post by **Mistborn** » Mon Jul 14, 2014 5:33 pm

Well they do have people like Tarnowski and Shitmuffin cheerleading them this time. Now obviously that should be considered a minus but Mearls et. al. seem to think that these fuckasses have real pull with the RPG community. Is WotC catering to the grognards going to move meaningful amounts of product and if it doesn't will the "consultants" who currently have a swelled head because Mike-senpai noticed them have to eat any crow.

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Mon Jul 14, 2014 8:04 pm

Lago wrote: You'd think that Mike Mearls would've learned that the campaign setting is by far the most important part of a TTRPG by now.

This is admittedly a tangent, but do you really think that's true? I don't deny that a decent campaign setting is beneficial to the product line and probably to the game as a whole. But I have genuine difficulty in seeing it as the most important part.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Mon Jul 14, 2014 8:24 pm

I do believe I heard some rumours somewhere (don't quote me on this) that WotC will focus more on adventures for 5e.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Jul 14, 2014 8:49 pm

Blicero wrote:This is admittedly a tangent, but do you really think that's true? I don't deny that a decent campaign setting is beneficial to the product line and probably to the game as a whole. But I have genuine difficulty in seeing it as the most important part.

Yes, I really do believe that this is true. There are plenty of games that are mediocre, awful, even unplayable from a rules perspective, yet nonetheless coast by on the strength of the campaign setting or even a three-sentence tagline pitch. 1E-2E Shadowrun, oWoD, Exalted, Shovelware World, etc. Even with games that aren't complete ass like Mouseguard and Earthdawn, the campaign setting is what saves them from being 'experimental storygame' and 'interminable fantasy heartbreaker from the 80s'. The only exceptions I can think of are Champions, FATE Core, and D&D. And the vast majority of D&D-derived games for 2E or 3E were set in Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, or an ancillary setting like Al Qadim. Hell, for 4E D&D Dark Sun was the only non-incestual hype the that miserable edition got after its release that wasn't Essentials.

If a game as unplayable and baroque as Exalted can still have fans almost 12 years later, complete with a surprise Kickstarter success for a third edition for the fucking thing, that's more than enough evidence for me that the campaign setting is the most important factor in a TTRPG's success.