Getting rid of the ham-fisted SJW propaganda from the rule books and adventures would make 5e much better.

Quote from: Crusader X;1072132Getting rid of the ham-fisted SJW propaganda from the rule books and adventures would make 5e much better.

Greetings!

LOL! Indeed. Very true, Crusader X!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Crusader X;1072132Getting rid of the ham-fisted SJW propaganda from the rule books and adventures would make 5e much better.

In the core it's just a couple lines in the PHB.

For adventures... Well same as with Paizo I stick to pre-2013, with WoTC I'll be sticking to pre-2018*. I'm starting Princes of the Apocalypse on Saturday, it was designed by Sasquatch with WoTC oversight and I've not seen any socjus stuff in it.

*AFAICT Crawford only turned FR into his Magical Realm in 2018 with the Waterdeep stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dungeons_%26_Dragons_adventures
While Paizo had Wrath of the Righteous in 2013 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Path

Quote from: Crusader X;1072132Getting rid of the ham-fisted SJW propaganda from the rule books and adventures would make 5e much better.

Yeah, that crap is forced in, and not necessary.

Quote from: S'mon;1072136I'm starting Princes of the Apocalypse on Saturday, it was designed by Sasquatch with WoTC oversight and I've not seen any socjus stuff in it.

I may be running Princes of the Apocalypse in a few months.  Are you going to do any online write-ups of your game?  I would enjoy reading them if you did.

On a related note, while it wouldn't win me back, I think it might help if the design/development team was a bit less provocative on Twitter.

Quote from: Crusader X;1072145I may be running Princes of the Apocalypse in a few months.  Are you going to do any online write-ups of your game?  I would enjoy reading them if you did.

One of my players is a fairly successful author so I like to make her do the writeups.

Yes writeups will be posted at http://frloudwater.blogspot.com/?m=1

A PHB with a proper  F'ing Index and glossary.

Getting rid of bonus actions and simply making them an additional thing you can do on your turn for some cost.

Boil down each column of vague mealy-mouthed crap to one sentence of actual English. Use the space freed up thereby for sandbox mechanics, domain rules, and mass combat.

Quote from: Dan Vincze;1072177Boil down each column of vague mealy-mouthed crap to one sentence of actual English. Use the space freed up thereby for sandbox mechanics, domain rules, and mass combat.

You win the thread.

Quote from: Dan Vincze;1072177Boil down each column of vague mealy-mouthed crap to one sentence of actual English.

What does this even mean?

Quote from: Dan Vincze;1072177Use the space freed up thereby for sandbox mechanics, domain rules, and mass combat.

So you want a skirmish/war game, like Chainmail.  That's cool.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1072225So you want a skirmish/war game, like Chainmail.  That's cool.

I think he means like oD&D and Braunstien. Chainmail does not have certain things like domain rules or the out-of-battle rules for fielding an army (ongoing costs, etc.). It certainly doesn't have rules for sandbox style D&D play.

Those are relatively simple things that could have been added to 5e with 2-12 pages, and would have gone a long way towards making the edition realize the supposed role it was seeking as a common ground for all editions and playstyles. It's absence is as striking as the 4e people not getting their marshal class analogue.

But we're in agreement in the 'vague mealy-mouthed crap to one sentence of actual English' bit--that's just pointless insults with no actual argument behind them.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1072225What does this even mean?

I don't know what the OP meant, but I will say that making no clear distinction between prose and mechanics (i.e. "natural" language) is definitely a needless complication of the system versus employing technical language for its mechanics.

One example of this is earlier in this very thread where I presume that references to common and uncommon races is 100% fluff, while another claimed it was mechanical distinction between the races. So which is it? Mechanic or fluff? That's pretty much up to the GM.

Making the distinction clear can help a lot in ruling on edge cases, particularly when several rules end up interacting. Knowing which parts are mechanics you need to pay attention to during an interaction and which parts are fluff you should just alter to make sense after the interactions are worked out is helpful for avoiding arguments and moving things along.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1072229I think he means like oD&D and Braunstien. Chainmail does not have certain things like domain rules or the out-of-battle rules for fielding an army (ongoing costs, etc.). It certainly doesn't have rules for sandbox style D&D play.

Those are relatively simple things that could have been added to 5e with 2-12 pages, and would have gone a long way towards making the edition realize the supposed role it was seeking as a common ground for all editions and playstyles. It's absence is as striking as the 4e people not getting their marshal class analogue.

The D&D Next playtest, and the surveys that went with it, was the largest in RPG history. By far. If WotC received data showing domain play and army-scale combat rules had a sizeable audience, they would have included it in 5E. I'd be surprised if even 10 per cent of people who have played D&D expect that stuff in their game.

5E cast a wide net. But it couldn't be everything to everybody.

Quote from: Chris24601;1072236I don't know what the OP meant, but I will say that making no clear distinction between prose and mechanics (i.e. "natural" language) is definitely a needless complication of the system versus employing technical language for its mechanics.

5E was a big step back in terms of rules presentation. Everything is buried in paragraphs of text. Very few bulletted points and numbered lists. I've been playing since day one, and run multiple spellcasters, and I still have to puzzle over the walls of text in the PHB every single time I run a character to figure out how many spells I know and how many I can use.

Everything you need to know how to engage with the mechanics as a player, including everything you need to know about your class and race abilities, could be condensed onto two sides of a single piece of paper using well-established and attractive technical communications techniques. WotC went back to burying mechanics in walls of text, presumably out of a fidelity to tradition or nostalgia. It's just sad when usability and proper document design take a back seat to such airy notions (and also catering to the non-playing book buyer who never has to worry about how to actually use the book in-game).