D&D 5e has failed

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Wed Mar 09, 2016 4:56 pm

So how are 5e supporters enjoying their lack of product or is this a thing that doesn't concern them?

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Wed Mar 09, 2016 5:08 pm

I literally had a guy come into the store on Saturday who cited 'one adventure every three months' as evidence that 5e wasn't dead. I think a lot of the 5e adopters are relative newcomers and don't actually know what a thriving D&D is supposed to look like.

infected slut princess · Wed Mar 09, 2016 8:42 pm

There is a grand total of 12 people who play 5e. They are all losers.

Schleiermacher · Post by **Schleiermacher** » Wed Mar 09, 2016 9:15 pm

I personally know more 5E players than that. Only two of them are losers, and would have been so with or without 5E. All of them also play other RPGs.

Mechalich · Post by **Mechalich** » Wed Mar 09, 2016 10:44 pm

There are plenty of people willing to play 5e, regardless of how generally terrible a system it is, simply because it is terrible in different ways from the other variants of D&D available. Pathfinder turns people off because it's 'cater edition' and there's plenty of people who want to contribute without having to bother with casting spells. 4e has its own problems and also is simply impossible to beat into a shape that resembles what people think D&D is supposed to be in their various mind caulked understandings. 3.X is simply old and has plenty of its own problems that depending on style of play may be more relevant to a particular table than the otherwise objectively greater problems of 5e.

Having to compete with Pathfinder is obviously a big problem for 5e, but they still ought to be doing much better than this. 'Dungeons&Dragons' is still the most valuable IP in gaming, and if WotC's corporate culture is sufficiently fucked up as to no longer be able to produce any version of the game at all, then they should give the license to someone who will.

Jason · Post by **Jason** » Wed Mar 09, 2016 11:04 pm

The people playing D&D 5th edition play it mostly because they grew up with D&D and they place a lot of sentimental value on the IP. Add to that that there has never been a "good" version of D&D. The rules have always had major flaws and we still played, because at first there wasn't much for alternative and later on it was laden with sentimental value. We read the books, we grew up with the lore and playing something else ist simply not the same. Now personally, I won't touch 5th edition with a ten foot pole (and that is coming from someone that played 4th edition) but I can understand why a lot of people still play D&D. Just have a look at youtube reviews of fith edition and you will see what I mean. Add to that an almost complete lack of understanding regarding game design and you have a match made in heaven. They are wrong, of course. 5th edition is a terrible, terrible system. But those before weren't great either. It's a sort of lerned helplessness, I guess.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Mar 09, 2016 11:16 pm

I know a guy who plays 5e because he's new to gaming and that's what the group he joined plays. One of my coworkers is a D&D newb too, but he doesn't know what edition he plays. I think he plays 5th, from what he's told me.

5e players are probably a lot of newbies for whom it's their first edition, that, or their first edition was 4th.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 1:22 am

I'd be surprised if a lot of new people were playing 5th edition. If that's true beyond anecdotal evidence, that would indicate it is not a total failure. Being able to recruit new players is an important first step. Basic D&D and Advanced D&D existed side-by-side aiming to address that important first step.

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 1:34 am

I'm gonna be honest, I'm probably one of the biggest 5e despisers on this board and I can see why people like 5e.

Mostly because you really can't defend the other editions.

I mean, I love 3e. But if someone were to come up to me and go "the game is too complex, the rules interact poorly, no one knows how shadow magic works, the designers didn't understand their own game", etc, the first words of my mouth would be "I agree."

So I can certainly see the appeal of anything new and interesting to play around with.

The problem is that 5e is a shit game that doesn't even try to fix any of the problems that D&D has historically suffered.

phlapjackage · Post by **phlapjackage** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 1:55 am

Prak wrote:I know a guy who plays 5e because he's new to gaming and that's what the group he joined plays. One of my coworkers is a D&D newb too, but he doesn't know what edition he plays. I think he plays 5th, from what he's told me.

5e players are probably a lot of newbies for whom it's their first edition, that, or their first edition was 4th.

To add my anecdotal evidence, my new group here is wanting to play 5th, mostly because they are all first-time or almost first-time gamers and so 5th edition is new and shiny.

I've tried to suggest other systems (GURPS,HERO, even AS), but they're viewed as too "complex". For newbies, 5th seems to hit that sweet spot of new and comfortable at the same time. Hopefully it's the gateway drug to the other systems for them..."You've taken your first step into a larger world"...

Shrieking Banshee · Post by **Shrieking Banshee** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 2:01 am

phlapjackage wrote:I've tried to suggest other systems (GURPS,HERO, even AS), but they're viewed as too "complex". For newbies, 5th seems to hit that sweet spot of new and comfortable at the same time. Hopefully it's the gateway drug to the other systems for them..."You've taken your first step into a larger world"...

Thats exactly what 4e was for me so don't sweat it.

Heaven's Thunder Hammer · Thu Mar 10, 2016 3:25 am

All of my friends who have tried 5th Ed have liked it and switched to it. That represents people in 3-4 groups as there's some crossover between groups. Even when chatting to total strangers in the local RPG shop - people in my town at least really like 5th edition and it largely seems to me, people on the internet who hate 5th and not people I meet in real life.

I've only tried out the play test and that wasn't too bad. I am reserving judgement until I play a game using the proper rules.

Krusk · Post by **Krusk** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 3:41 am

Heaven's Thunder Hammer wrote:All of my friends who have tried 5th Ed have liked it and switched to it. That represents people in 3-4 groups as there's some crossover between groups. Even when chatting to total strangers in the local RPG shop - people in my town at least really like 5th edition and it largely seems to me, people on the internet who hate 5th and not people I meet in real life.

I've only tried out the play test and that wasn't too bad. I am reserving judgement until I play a game using the proper rules.

That is the exact opposite of my experience. Ive heard about a few people wanting to start a game of 5e but never getting it off the ground. The one guy in my main group who likes it has finally stopped bringing it up. The flgs has stopped stocking the books. I honestly thought it was basically dead at this point. Saw this thread pop back up and said "wait is that still a thing?" Turns out its basically not.

I own the books and played a few sessions of it as dm.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 5:07 am

The biggest advantage for 5e for me is that its brokenness is not well known. So even if people are vaguely aware that 5e is broken, if I sit down and play a game of 5e, odds are no one know any of the broken combos, nor can they Google them up. There's no fifteen-year archive of GitP charop to fall back on. If I want to play 3.5e, I have to either wrangle all my players into the proper amount of sandbagging, not because they're assholes but because the balance between "my character is awesome" and "my character makes the rest of the party obsolete" is a different balance for every single party and finding it takes time and effort, or else I have to try and get people to sit down and accept reams and reams of house rules intended to hammer 3.5e into something resembling the game I actually want it to be.

With 5e, the only exploit that most people are aware of seems to be hectarchers, and that's one that most people are entirely happy to leave alone because it doesn't make them feel badass to roll a few Persuasion skill checks to rustle up a peasant militia, point them at the chimera, and the GM to say "well okay, some number of peasants die and then the chimera is slain and the exact details of that fight aren't worth rolling out."

With any luck, 5e will die a swift enough death that no one will ever bother putting much effort into charopping and this advantage will be preserved.

Mechalich · Post by **Mechalich** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 5:28 am

Chamomile wrote:The biggest advantage for 5e for me is that its brokenness is not well known. So even if people are vaguely aware that 5e is broken, if I sit down and play a game of 5e, odds are no one know any of the broken combos, nor can they Google them up. There's no fifteen-year archive of GitP charop to fall back on. If I want to play 3.5e, I have to either wrangle all my players into the proper amount of sandbagging, not because they're assholes but because the balance between "my character is awesome" and "my character makes the rest of the party obsolete" is a different balance for every single party and finding it takes time and effort, or else I have to try and get people to sit down and accept reams and reams of house rules intended to hammer 3.5e into something resembling the game I actually want it to be.

And this is actually the kind of thing that would be very appealing to non-rules-minded GMs (which are a fairly large fraction of GMs. Running 3.5 means spending a vast amount of time controlling the system and making sure your system mastery is at a level sufficient to at least match every player in your group to prevent things that totally break the game from sneaking in.

Lot's of GMs don't want to do that and don't find doing it fun - which is why there are so many 'Core only' and other format-shrinking games out there -, so a less exploitable system - even if we're talking about exploitation purely via google-fu, has real appeal.

In that way 5e's lack of endless power-creep books is actually a feature.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 5:48 am

Chamomile wrote:The biggest advantage for 5e for me is that its brokenness is not well known. So even if people are vaguely aware that 5e is broken, if I sit down and play a game of 5e, odds are no one know any of the broken combos, nor can they Google them up. There's no fifteen-year archive of GitP charop to fall back on. If I want to play 3.5e, I have to either wrangle all my players into the proper amount of sandbagging, not because they're assholes but because the balance between "my character is awesome" and "my character makes the rest of the party obsolete" is a different balance for every single party and finding it takes time and effort, or else I have to try and get people to sit down and accept reams and reams of house rules intended to hammer 3.5e into something resembling the game I actually want it to be.

With 5e, the only exploit that most people are aware of seems to be hectarchers, and that's one that most people are entirely happy to leave alone because it doesn't make them feel badass to roll a few Persuasion skill checks to rustle up a peasant militia, point them at the chimera, and the GM to say "well okay, some number of peasants die and then the chimera is slain and the exact details of that fight aren't worth rolling out."

With any luck, 5e will die a swift enough death that no one will ever bother putting much effort into charopping and this advantage will be preserved.

My purely anecdotal evidence suggests that the 5e community is incredibly antagonistic to charop in the 3.5 "fighters are balanced because if your wizard pisses me off I will wreck your shit" sense. The game is balanced exactly how they like it because if you do something they don't like they'll tear up your character sheets over and over until you fall in line or stop playing. Fun fact: everytime I've ever actually played with someone who talked like that the game has never once been remotely balanced and what they would and wouldn't banhammer was completely fucking random.

But that is all anecdotal, so whatever.

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 6:22 am

We all lack larger evidence gathering methods for 5th edition playing so getting a board full of people to discuss anecdotal evidence is the most valid method we have right now.

Were there huge pbp websites or giant cons with tens of thousands of games being played at once that would be better but since the one thing we know is 5e isn't successful enough to make that happen we'll have to make do with what we have.

Windjammer · Post by **Windjammer** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 8:14 am

Mord wrote:
That article wrote:A member of the Dungeons & Dragons brand team, Chris Lindsay is focused primarily on product development, which is a lot like herding cats in a darkened room with no doors and no windows.
I know that's supposed to sound whimsical and light-hearted, but it reads as sad and frustrated to me.

I can't any longer give much credence to the very idea that there is a paid D&D dept in WotC. On the few occasions on the past two years I've heard of and thought about what's coming out of Renton, WA, I see Mearls and co. as a self employed team of freelancers renting their own office space from a company that formerly employed them. The old Communist adage, 'We pretend to work and you pretend to pay us' would fit this perfectly, except in Seattle this degree of economic and creative hollowness is associated with the defeatist heroism of teenage bands trying to get a demo together in a smelly underlit garage. This is how I perceive 5e's popular endorsement from the OSR old guard: disenfranchised, middle aged, creatively bankrupt middle class white trash who deign themselves to be teenage anti-heroes like Nirvana.

mlangsdorf · Post by **mlangsdorf** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 2:23 pm

Heaven's Thunder Hammer wrote:All of my friends who have tried 5th Ed have liked it and switched to it. That represents people in 3-4 groups as there's some crossover between groups. Even when chatting to total strangers in the local RPG shop - people in my town at least really like 5th edition and it largely seems to me, people on the internet who hate 5th and not people I meet in real life.

I've only tried out the play test and that wasn't too bad. I am reserving judgement until I play a game using the proper rules.

My tabletop group plays D&D 5e for a couple of reasons:
* the DM load is fairly minimal. We're playing Princes of the Apocalypse, which is a fairly open-ended but complete adventure path, so the GM just has to familiarize himself with whichever dungeon we're currently pointed at.
* Play is fast. Even at (maybe especially at) high level, it's possible to get multiple combats in during a play session. It's not quite rocket tag, but it is minimal and fast.
* It's a friendly compromise between competing interests: I want to play GURPS, but other people hate GURPS with a passion. Other people want to play Apocalypse World, but I hate it with a passion. D&D 5e is equally meh to everyone.

Is it a bad game? Yeah, sure. But all games are bad games, really. D&D 5e is lazy, but if you don't want to spend time gaining system mastery it works okay.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 10:30 pm

Heaven's Thunder Hammer wrote:I've only tried out the play test and that wasn't too bad. I am reserving judgement until I play a game using the proper rules.

5e, proper rules. Oh you

pragma · Post by **pragma** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 11:55 pm

Most of my friends play 5e due to the active efforts of one strong advocate. That said, I see the appeal. At low levels, the game is pretty hard to break and the worst exploits (skeleton archers, moon druid combat monsters, CC wizards) are either easy to make unappealing to roleplay ("don't bring those undead abominations into my city") or just don't have as much ammo as in other editions.

As a result, it's easy to pick up and hard to break. Now, that neglects the fact that stealth rules are a deep mess, the skill system ranges from intensely subjective to nonexistent and there are some classes which drastically underperform. These problems don't necessarily hamstring a game where a group of low level people stomp over to a dungeion and the GM applies sufficiently glue logic to the skills.

Even with those flaws, I find 5e fun, mostly because it's quick to pick up and easy to play.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 2:35 am

Between 4e and 5e which one is easier to house rule into a better game.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 2:39 am

OgreBattle wrote:Between 4e and 5e which one is easier to house rule into a better game.

Uh.... You basically have to write your own game from scratch in either case. Since 3e exists, and 5e is just 3e + bounded accuracy + we deleted half the rules, it's probably easier to copy paste 3e into all the holes in 5e (which is probably what all the people who like it are doing) and then adding back in accuracy bonuses than to fix 4e, but in either case, you are basically writing the game yourself.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 2:52 am

I think the lack of rules is 5E's major draw. That's what the people want and I'm not surprised that, with all the 'Rules Lite' RPGs that've been kickstarted and otherwise funded with the idea that less rules > more mentality, that 5E has players. What I'm actually surprised at is the LACK of content. Why the lack there of? Why doesn't it bother players?

Heaven's Thunder Hammer · Fri Mar 11, 2016 3:13 am

MGuy wrote:I think the lack of rules is 5E's major draw. That's what the people want and I'm not surprised that, with all the 'Rules Lite' RPGs that've been kickstarted and otherwise funded with the idea that less rules > more mentality, that 5E has players. What I'm actually surprised at is the LACK of content. Why the lack there of? Why doesn't it bother players?

The groups I know all have extensive collections of worlds from previous editions and are good at writing their own material. They don't care for endless char op and endless options. As stated earlier - the lack of piles of supplements IS a feature. They tried out princes of the apocalypse, but were never much for adventure paths or printed adventures.