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I do like Advantage/Disadvantage so I'm intrigued by some discussions around the "O5R", aka OSR blended with 5e.

What other 5e concepts are worth stealing?
What else from 5e works awesome at the table?

And has anyone improved upon the ADV/DISADV mechanics?

BTW, Venger Ass'Nasty Satanis was the first author I heard talking about O5R, but if anyone knows it the phrase pre-dates him, let me know. His excellent CHA'ALT (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/284600/Chaalt) setting is an example of what's intriguing me (and the description of Cha'alt as a Rifts/Gamma World setting is dead right).

Having recently shelved my 5e books, I can't really say there's anything about its mechanics that stand out all that much from earlier versions. What it has is popularity and exposure.

It came up in the hit dice versus level conversation, I don't know if it was present in 3rd or 4th because I skipped those, but different size of hit dice for Monsters gives you some flexibility.

My two favorite things about D&D 5e are Bounded Accuracy and Unified Ability Roll Mechanics.

Bounded Accuracy
I've long believed that D&D has a problem with ability ranges and success rates, even before 3e came out (which only made it worse, but didn't originate the problem). Higher level characters tend to have abilities that vastly outstrip those of the general population and gaps in ability levels become so great lower level/HD opponents become absurdly trivial. This issue always takes me back to the highest level fighter in my old 2e group (back in the 90s), who could routinely decapitate enemies using called shot to the head (-8 to hit penalties) cuz his THAC0 plus attack modifiers (from STR, weapon mastery, and magic bonuses) far outstripped most of the AC values in the game. Bounded accuracy is a consideration that seems to address this issue.

Unified Ability Roll Mechanics
By which I mean "everything is a Skill/Proficiency" instead attacks, saves, skills, etc. having completely different ways to calculate your score in them. This is sort of a double edged sword, since it basically turns everything into a skill, at which point it makes me wonder "why even have character classes or even play D&D? Lets just play a d20 skill-based game! (which would normally be my preference)", but I like it because of its simplicity and the way that all ability rolls use the exact same mechanics, making them easy to recall. Another issue with this, though, is that it contributes to the "sameification" of characters, since everyone of the same level has the exact same Proficiency Modifier, so the only way to distinguish their talent is through ability score modifiers. Actual skill-based systems don't have this problem, though, because skill levels are variable in those games. But like I said, it vastly simplifies the system and makes things easy to remember—at least as far as core mechanics are concerned (character classes are a different bloated mess, which I HATE about 5e).

After playing for a bit over 1 year, none of the other mechanics are worthy of notice. If a 5E mechanic prompts me to say "meh" that seems to be as good as 5E gets.

Somewhat off-topic: while I like the advantage/disadvantage mechanic in the abstract, I've grown to really hate the implementation of advantage/disadvantage in 5E. Other systems, like Barbarians of Lemuria/Honor+Intrigue are more nuanced and flexible since they don't try to shoehorn everything into a single advantage or disadvantage.

Quote from: Bren on September 23, 2020, 08:21:55 PMSomewhat off-topic: while I like the advantage/disadvantage mechanic in the abstract, I've grown to really hate the implementation of advantage/disadvantage in 5E.

What goes wrong in the implementation that you hate?

D&D 5E


Advantage / Disadvantage, simplifies the DM's job.


NOT having 47 different player classes to consider, simplifies the DM's job.


Making Multiclassing Optional, simplifies the DM's job.


Clearly stating that the DM is in charge, simplifies the DM's job.


Making Feats Optional, allows the game to have more of a Classic feel.

Bound Accuracy.

Take a squad of orcs. Give them plate armor instead of their hide armor. Bound Accuracy causes even a tier 2 group to pause, especially if there is a warchief leading the group. Not only does design become more straightforward, from a DM perspective, but it adds verisimilitude. Adding plate armor to warriors should make them meaner, and it does.

And that's not even a monster with multiattack. Not having an escalator ramp is design freedom in many ways.

Aaaaaaand Advantage/Disadvantage is Table Freedom. No, I'm not going to had out a +2, +4, -3, blah, blah, blah. Roll Advantage, moofoo. Yeah, you done messed up. That's Disadvantage.

The modular approach in 5e is well done IMO and makes it easy for the DM to build their own game without traumatising their players, depending which modules are switched on. Making Feats optional was a bit of design genius; the game feels and plays very differently without them, much more 'classic'. Also makes it practical to build NPCs with the PC rules, unlike 3e & 4e.


Edit: Talking of design genius, who actually designed this game? It clearly was not Mearls & Crawford, who seem to have almost no understanding of the system. I'm guessing the 'Lead Designers' M&C were shooting tequila while the 'Designers' did the actual work.

Quote from: S'mon on September 24, 2020, 02:44:11 AM
The modular approach in 5e is well done IMO and makes it easy for the DM to build their own game without traumatising their players, depending which modules are switched on. Making Feats optional was a bit of design genius; the game feels and plays very differently without them, much more 'classic'. Also makes it practical to build NPCs with the PC rules, unlike 3e & 4e.


Edit: Talking of design genius, who actually designed this game? It clearly was not Mearls & Crawford, who seem to have almost no understanding of the system. I'm guessing the 'Lead Designers' M&C were shooting tequila while the 'Designers' did the actual work.

Mearls was supposed to be the main designer, while Crawford was his rules lawyer.

It really doesn't bring much new to the design table, unless you've only ever played D&D before.

Best of 2 or worst of 2 wasn't a new thing- but 5E sure made it popular. During the playtest, It clicked in my head and I used it as a replacement mechanic in C&C-  Base DC always 15+ challenge level. PCs with a prime roll with advantage, otherwise, straight roll.

Many of its "unique" things were borrowed from 4E and names and mechanics changed slightly (Hit Dice vs Healing Surges, Short and Long rests vs Encounter & Daily Powers), etc.

Inspiration- again , new to D&D but the concept has been around for long before

Backgrounds- same

I think the best I can muster about 5E mechanics vs previous editions (4E back to OD&D)  is that it's probably the only version I could sit down and play without house-ruling/changing a bunch of stuff. It's "non offensive"  store brand plain vanilla ice-cream from a mechanical standpoint. As always, with every edition  I limit races/classes as appropriate to the types of games/campaigns I run.

IME you have to go outside D&D proper to find the innovative/clever mechanics in D&D type games-13th Age, a handful of OSR products, etc. The backlash to 4E killed any creativity or innovation in D&D mechanics for the foreseeable future. D&D players on the whole are weird about change: they want the same things as before, just in a new package with a minor update (and then complain when they get just that).  This is why I pretty much play only OD&D when it comes to D&D proper. I'm sick of the SOS edition after edition, book after book since 1977. I  go elsewhere for that creative/new fix.

Bounded Accuracy and the fact any character can use any skill but some are better at some than others are two excellent features of D&D 5e.


But they are only correcting what Gygax broke with Greyhawk Supplement I, AD&D, and Unearthed Arcana. Bounded Accuracy was perfectly fine in the 3 LBB of OD&D. Even added some of Greyhawk was fine as long you tone down the ability bonuses to a -3 to +3 range.


As for the latter, I had that in my Majestic Wilderlands supplement back in 2009 only I called it abilities instead of skills. Because the hallmark of the system was that any character could use any ability except some were better at specific abilities because of their attribute score or class. It worked out well and it is the spirit of the older campaign where outside of combat and spellcasting characters were on an even playing field as far as what they could try.


So I am glad 5e introduced both of these concepts to a larger audience.


What I don't like about 5e is the 20 level spread which inflates the amount of work it takes to create a new character class.


I find it interesting that how they leveraged inflated hit point totals to allow a variety of combat abilities yet still retain a similar power curve to that of OD&D.

Best part of 5e is taking a bunch of stuff that worked well in previous editions and putting them together in the main rule set.  There's very little that's unique when I think about and looking at other people's responses.


They still somehow managed to pooch the Saving Throws and how to classify spells as Saves.  Once again the spells are clustered mostly on 3 Ability scores so it's not quite as bad as 2e's Save vs Spell problem and not quite as bad as 3e with Save or Suck but it's still not great.


For me I like the Tool Proficiencies and Languages.  Having them be different than Skill Proficiencies and being able to learn them on Downtime regardless of level or number of slots or anything like that is great.  If you want to make a jack of all trades you can do so without having to be a Bard.  B.A. Baracus can be a Fighter again.

Not really specific, but for me the best thing about 5e is the supposed* modularity, where you can strip feats, multiclassing, even skills, and have your "just right" quantity of mechanical load.I also think the DMG's alternative rules are really interesting in giving insight about the malleability of many rules: like the static proficiency bonus which can be replaced with d4, d6,...,d12; adv/disadv is just a +5 with a twist; etc.
Bounded accuracy is neither here nor there with me. I like the idea of it, but the resulting "damage sponges" is something I detest.


* Supposed, because lately I've seen less and less people that would be ok with stripping something from the system instead of adding, so the whole design concept becomes moot. But I guess this is a problem of the zeitgeist, not of the system itself.

Organization of rulebooks is a great idea that I rarely see in games.

   
• Putting character creation rules in order of when they're used. The first time I played the game, never having seen the books, I created a character from scratch simply by starting at the first page of character creation and following through page by page.
• Edited Books Matter. Typos, and awkward constructions that confuse the text, in the PH are extremely rare.

Quote from: JeffB on September 24, 2020, 10:02:29 AM

It really doesn't bring much new to the design table, unless you've only ever played D&D before.

Best of 2 or worst of 2 wasn't a new thing- but 5E sure made it popular. During the playtest, It clicked in my head and I used it as a replacement mechanic in C&C-  Base DC always 15+ challenge level. PCs with a prime roll with advantage, otherwise, straight roll.

Many of its "unique" things were borrowed from 4E and names and mechanics changed slightly (Hit Dice vs Healing Surges, Short and Long rests vs Encounter & Daily Powers), etc.

Inspiration- again , new to D&D but the concept has been around for long before

Backgrounds- same

I think the best I can muster about 5E mechanics vs previous editions (4E back to OD&D)  is that it's probably the only version I could sit down and play without house-ruling/changing a bunch of stuff. It's "non offensive"  store brand plain vanilla ice-cream from a mechanical standpoint. As always, with every edition  I limit races/classes as appropriate to the types of games/campaigns I run.

IME you have to go outside D&D proper to find the innovative/clever mechanics in D&D type games-13th Age, a handful of OSR products, etc. The backlash to 4E killed any creativity or innovation in D&D mechanics for the foreseeable future. D&D players on the whole are weird about change: they want the same things as before, just in a new package with a minor update (and then complain when they get just that).  This is why I pretty much play only OD&D when it comes to D&D proper. I'm sick of the SOS edition after edition, book after book since 1977. I  go elsewhere for that creative/new fix.

True, but this pretty much applies to D&D as a whole. IMO, D&D's success is largely owed to two things and two things alone: Name Recognition and people's unwillingness to branch out and learn new systems. Which creates a feedback loop that allows network externalities to keep the game afloat even if the system is abject garbage.

But as far as I can tell, pretty much every single innovation in D&D's history has been taken from other systems, cuz other games did it first, and D&D loves its useless sacred cows. Skills/Proficiencies, Roll +Modifier, unified mechanics, etc., even bounded accuracy pretty much existed before 5e. D&D is basically the blackhole of RPGs. Even the system itself was pretty much stolen from someone else who was then left out of the loop—that's how much innovation D&D brings.

Still, I suppose that this type of discussions are still useful if you want to work within the "D&D" framework to figure out what works and what doesn't to cook up your ideal version of a D&D-like game. Who knows, if your game is good enough they might even steal a half-baked version of it for the next edition of D&D and call it their own.

Specifically from an Old School perspective (possibly a little broader than OSR, but O5R will do), my opinion is that there are some solid nuggets in 5E where the direction of the idea can be lifted but not the implementation.  Advantage/Disadvantage is probably the exception, which is why it is the first thing suggested.  Anyway, others:

1. Bounded Accuracy - controlling attack/AC modifiers, fine. Implementation of the scaling hit points, lacking.  Specifically, they scale too much, too fast. This isn't just a function of estar's point about 20 levels, either.  Someone went pure math and let the raw numbers gets out of control. 

2. A class "path" selected between levels 1 and 3, for customization, thus limiting the total number of classes.  Falls short in that the classes could be more streamlined (almost to an OSR degree) and let the paths do the heavier lifting.  Leads in 5E to a lot of dinky path abilities, detracting from the good side of feats being much reduced in effect.]

3. The room to have more old school saving throws is there.  5E just didn't do it.  Specifically, the 5E math assumes that the save target and the save modifier are scaling by level.  This is a 3E-ism that 5E could have kicked to the curb and/or left as an optional rule geared off of spell level instead of the caster's stats.  What would survive translation to OSR (I think) is a mechanic about as simple as the BEMCI saves, but without the chart.

4. Exhaustion. Go back and read Rules Compendium.  Almost everything that Exhaustion does in 5E is in those rules, often using almost identical key words in the text.  5E just has better organization and simplifies the mechanics.

On the scaling hit points, I'm playing with a design idea right now that is certainly not OSR in most respects, but is trying to get a more OSR-type solution for that.
I'm also looking at saving throws as discussed above, but I'm not far enough along to say much more about it yet.

Quote from: Spinachcat on September 23, 2020, 11:54:34 PM

Quote from: Bren on September 23, 2020, 08:21:55 PMSomewhat off-topic: while I like the advantage/disadvantage mechanic in the abstract, I've grown to really hate the implementation of advantage/disadvantage in 5E.

What goes wrong in the implementation that you hate?

The limitation to only three states -- advantage, single die roll, and disadvantage -- along with the way different states cancel each other out.

   
• Attack an opponent who can't see you - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent when your ally is distracting them - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent who is restrained - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent who is prone - you gain advantage on your attack roll.

But if you attack a restrained, prone, opponent who can't see you and is being distracted by your ally - you only gain advantage. There is no additional advantage to the additional benefits. Seems like there should be.

And if you have three or four things giving you advantage, but one thing giving you disadvantage the one disadvantage cancels out all of the other advantages. That seems peculiar, at best.
And before anyone replies -- and I know someone will -- of course I know that there are a number of ways to house rule things to change this. And if I had any interest in DMing 5E I would change things.

Quote from: Bren on September 24, 2020, 04:37:14 PM

Quote from: Spinachcat on September 23, 2020, 11:54:34 PM

Quote from: Bren on September 23, 2020, 08:21:55 PMSomewhat off-topic: while I like the advantage/disadvantage mechanic in the abstract, I've grown to really hate the implementation of advantage/disadvantage in 5E.

What goes wrong in the implementation that you hate?

The limitation to only three states -- advantage, single die roll, and disadvantage -- along with the way different states cancel each other out.

   
• Attack an opponent who can't see you - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent when your ally is distracting them - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent who is restrained - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent who is prone - you gain advantage on your attack roll.

But if you attack a restrained, prone, opponent who can't see you and is being distracted by your ally - you only gain advantage. There is no additional advantage to the additional benefits. Seems like there should be.

And if you have three or four things giving you advantage, but one thing giving you disadvantage the one disadvantage cancels out all of the other advantages. That seems peculiar, at best.
And before anyone replies -- and I know someone will -- of course I know that there are a number of ways to house rule things to change this. And if I had any interest in DMing 5E I would change things.

You also get stupid interactions like:

   
• Shoot a longbow at a target at long range: Attack with Disadvantage.
• Shoot a longbow at a target at long range in heavy fog: Attack without Disadvantage.

Quote from: Bren on September 24, 2020, 04:37:14 PM

Quote from: Spinachcat on September 23, 2020, 11:54:34 PM

Quote from: Bren on September 23, 2020, 08:21:55 PMSomewhat off-topic: while I like the advantage/disadvantage mechanic in the abstract, I've grown to really hate the implementation of advantage/disadvantage in 5E.

What goes wrong in the implementation that you hate?

The limitation to only three states -- advantage, single die roll, and disadvantage -- along with the way different states cancel each other out.

   
• Attack an opponent who can't see you - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent when your ally is distracting them - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent who is restrained - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent who is prone - you gain advantage on your attack roll.

But if you attack a restrained, prone, opponent who can't see you and is being distracted by your ally - you only gain advantage. There is no additional advantage to the additional benefits. Seems like there should be.

And if you have three or four things giving you advantage, but one thing giving you disadvantage the one disadvantage cancels out all of the other advantages. That seems peculiar, at best.
And before anyone replies -- and I know someone will -- of course I know that there are a number of ways to house rule things to change this. And if I had any interest in DMing 5E I would change things.

This is pretty much the sort reason I don't like Advantage/Disadvantage and don't get the fawning love for it. I much prefer the old 2/4 point increments for attack and ability rolls. It was far more granular and realistic, and allowed more nuance when dealing with variable advantages and complications. I'd usually use +/-4 by default, then reduce to +/-2 if the advantage or complication was minimal or increased by +/-4 if it was more significant. And if multiple factors are at play, I'd just add them all together without problem, so ALL factors have an impact on the roll (as it should be).

Quote from: Spinachcat on September 23, 2020, 06:05:45 PM
I do like Advantage/Disadvantage so I'm intrigued by some discussions around the "O5R", aka OSR blended with 5e.

What other 5e concepts are worth stealing?
What else from 5e works awesome at the table?

And has anyone improved upon the ADV/DISADV mechanics?

I don't play 5e, but if I did, I'd improve on Advantage/Disadvantage by tossing it right the hell out.

Quote from: Spinachcat on September 23, 2020, 06:05:45 PM
And has anyone improved upon the ADV/DISADV mechanics?

I strongly prefer Shadow of the Demon Lord's boons & banes to 5e's Adv/Disadv rule.

D&D 5E still has a lot of rules, for playing make believe and using your imagination.  If you embrace a Rule set, you are accepting its rules; either in whole, or in part.


In some ways, I find D&D 5E to be the best presentation of D&D.


Example: Wild Magic Sorcerers, make Sorcerers interesting.

Quote from: VisionStorm on September 24, 2020, 08:51:45 PM

Quote from: Bren on September 24, 2020, 04:37:14 PM

Quote from: Spinachcat on September 23, 2020, 11:54:34 PM

Quote from: Bren on September 23, 2020, 08:21:55 PMSomewhat off-topic: while I like the advantage/disadvantage mechanic in the abstract, I've grown to really hate the implementation of advantage/disadvantage in 5E.

What goes wrong in the implementation that you hate?

The limitation to only three states -- advantage, single die roll, and disadvantage -- along with the way different states cancel each other out.

   
• Attack an opponent who can't see you - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent when your ally is distracting them - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent who is restrained - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent who is prone - you gain advantage on your attack roll.

But if you attack a restrained, prone, opponent who can't see you and is being distracted by your ally - you only gain advantage. There is no additional advantage to the additional benefits. Seems like there should be.

And if you have three or four things giving you advantage, but one thing giving you disadvantage the one disadvantage cancels out all of the other advantages. That seems peculiar, at best.
And before anyone replies -- and I know someone will -- of course I know that there are a number of ways to house rule things to change this. And if I had any interest in DMing 5E I would change things.

This is pretty much the sort reason I don't like Advantage/Disadvantage and don't get the fawning love for it. I much prefer the old 2/4 point increments for attack and ability rolls. It was far more granular and realistic, and allowed more nuance when dealing with variable advantages and complications. I'd usually use +/-4 by default, then reduce to +/-2 if the advantage or complication was minimal or increased by +/-4 if it was more significant. And if multiple factors are at play, I'd just add them all together without problem, so ALL factors have an impact on the roll (as it should be).

I disagree that it's more realistic, per se. Stacking a bunch of +2/4s makes your roll range go from say, 6-25 to 12-31, whereas advantage keeps you in in the same 6-25 but with the median around 20 instead of 15.5. Any DC higher than 25, i.e. things humans can less realistically do, are still impossible. Another part of advantage that I think makes it more natural is that it's not a linear bonus. It helps you the most for DCs around your non-adv/disadv median. If you need to roll a nat 10 to succeed, it's about the same as a +5 bonus. If you need to roll a nat 20, it's about a +1 bonus.


I can understand why the probabilities of advantage is less intuitive, and thus feel less realistic, though, which is certainly an important part of how one thinks about and designs a game system. Statistics aren't the same as how the game feels to play.

That being said, I like the idea of having cumulative adv/disadv combined with trading dice for a flat bonus. Then you can choose between beating a high DC, or more confidence against a low DC, or anything in between.

To understand advantage/disadvantage allow me to relate a story from playtesting my own system.


Like many skeptical of 5e, I built my system using static bonuses. But because a core tenant of my design process was to question everything, about two years into the process I decided to run a test using an advantage/disadvantage type system.


I told myself it would be to see if it was a decent enough mechanic for my optional rules section (where I'd placed a number of elements designed to let my system play more or less like various editions of D&D).


So there came a point in the session where one of the PCs was in a do-or-die situation (essentially a roll away from several PC deaths) and they rolled a 3 when they needed a 12 or better. So it wasn't even an interesting failure like a natural 1 (even if there's no mechanical effect to it, I habitually describing failures via natural 1s as rather comedic levels of bad luck interfering).


Then someone remembered the player had "advantage" on the check so the player rolled again and didn't just succeed, they rolled a natural 20. Critical success!


No reasonable amount of static bonuses would have changed that outcome (they'd have needed to scrounge up +9 in conditional modifiers), but the reroll took it from ignominious death to a player describing just how they pulled off their amazing feat (as I habitually allow players who roll natural 20's to do).


No static bonus could EVER compete with the endorphin rush of that. It was all the players were talking about afterwards. One of the players described it as a "saving throw vs. failure" and I found that description of it especially apt.


It was then that I realized that the advantage/disadvantage mechanic was going to need to be the core mechanic and the static bonuses the optional rule. The whole point of "question everything" was to find the best practices/most enjoyable mechanics for the system I was writing and advantage had blown static modifiers out of the water.


I ran several further tests, including ones with, frankly, ridiculous static conditional modifiers (one used +6 just so, on average, it would be a bigger boost than best case advantage) but the fix was in.


Rolling again just felt better (it was very intuitive to new players), was easier to apply after the fact (you didn't have to remember your actual roll, just that you had failed and got to roll again) and was also easier math (compare dice + add mod vs. add roll + base mod + each conditional mod).


The only thing it really needed was some stackability... one advantage with two disadvantages meant disadvantage. Double disadvantage meant disadvantage and half-effect even on a success. Double advantage meant advantage and a critical success if you succeeded.


The extra two degrees satisfied most of those who wanted more granularity, but kept the simplicity of roll twice (or reroll if you forgot and it might affect the outcome).


And that is the story of how I went from hating advantage and insisting on static modifiers to rebuilding my game to make an advantage/disadvantage style mechanic the primary source of conditional modifiers (vs. innate modifiers such as a PC/monster's skill even with very specific actions which remain static).

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 25, 2020, 08:34:11 AM
Then someone remembered the player had "advantage" on the check so the player rolled again and didn't just succeed, they rolled a natural 20. Critical success!


No reasonable amount of static bonuses would have changed that outcome (they'd have needed to scrounge up +9 in conditional modifiers), but the reroll took it from ignominious death to a player describing just how they pulled off their amazing feat (as I habitually allow players who roll natural 20's to do).


No static bonus could EVER compete with the endorphin rush of that. It was all the players were talking about afterwards. One of the players described it as a "saving throw vs. failure" and I found that description of it especially apt.

Yeah, I rarely hear people discuss how adv/disad increases the chances of rolling a crit or fumble. And having a re-roll can swing the result all the way from one to the other. While still keeping the numbers manageable.


I like re-roll mechanics for the reason you outlined.

Technically, what used to be called the "circumstance" bonus didn't go away in 5E.  You are just supposed to use it infrequently and replace most uses of it with advantage or disadvantage.  There's nothing to stop the GM using 5E RAW from treating "overwhelming" advantage/disadvantage with the occasional bonus, and it's just a short house rule from there to "GM rules that your vast advantage still stands despite the one disadvantage". 

But I think the underlying discontent with it is not the stacking so much as the range of things that give it. Being blind or hanging from one hand on a dangling rope while trying to fight is a lot bigger disadvantage than some of the more prosaic examples.  If I wanted to make it more systematic instead of just using rulings, it would be something like:

Overwhelming Advantage - advantage, +2 circumstance.
Overwhelming Advantage, with lesser disadvantage - advantage.

Then parallel Overwhelming Disadvantage options.  A +2 or -2 on top of advantage/disadvantage is pretty nasty when you look at the math, at least in most cases.  It's strictly a GM decision whether or not you get "Overwhelming" but guidelines would look at the number and severity of the sources of it, and would assume you need at least two to qualify in most cases (maybe not being blind).  That lets in a little of the "Player goes fishing for every possible modifier" issue, but still caps it at "Overwhelming" is as far as you can go. 

You could lower the circumstance to +1/-1 and apply it for every source, but that's too fiddly for me, and doesn't really solve the issue of particularly strong advantages or disadvantages.

Quote from: areallifetrex on September 25, 2020, 06:08:58 AMI disagree that it's more realistic, per se. Stacking a bunch of +2/4s makes your roll range go from say, 6-25 to 12-31, whereas advantage keeps you in in the same 6-25 but with the median around 20 instead of 15.5. Any DC higher than 25, i.e. things humans can less realistically do, are still impossible. Another part of advantage that I think makes it more natural is that it's not a linear bonus. It helps you the most for DCs around your non-adv/disadv median. If you need to roll a nat 10 to succeed, it's about the same as a +5 bonus. If you need to roll a nat 20, it's about a +1 bonus.

I disagree with your disagreement. What humans can realistically accomplish can be as much a factor of ability as of circumstance, beyond the inherent difficulty of the task itself. Hitting someone in the eye can generally be thought of as being an intrinsically difficult task--even more difficult than hitting someone in the head. Hitting someone in the eye with an arrow from 200 yards away in a rainy night is a nigh impossible task unlikely to succeed outside of a pure freak occurrence even in the hands of an expert marksman. But tie someone to a chair and hold their head still then let someone walk up to them a poke them in the eye with an arrow and that nigh impossible task suddenly becomes a likely possibility, even if the one doing the poking doesn't even know how to fight.

There is such as thing as circumstance improving the odds of accomplishing things you would otherwise find impossible. Even if stacking a bunch of situational modifiers could arguably get out of hand you could always address that particular issue by simply establishing a cap on how high situational modifiers can get, perhaps at around +12 or so. But circumstantial factors can definitely be significant enough to tip situations to your favor, even to the point of allowing you to accomplish (and likely succeed at) otherwise impossible tasks.

Quote from: areallifetrex on September 25, 2020, 06:08:58 AMThat being said, I like the idea of having cumulative adv/disadv combined with trading dice for a flat bonus. Then you can choose between beating a high DC, or more confidence against a low DC, or anything in between.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 25, 2020, 10:56:24 AM
Technically, what used to be called the "circumstance" bonus didn't go away in 5E.  You are just supposed to use it infrequently and replace most uses of it with advantage or disadvantage.  There's nothing to stop the GM using 5E RAW from treating "overwhelming" advantage/disadvantage with the occasional bonus, and it's just a short house rule from there to "GM rules that your vast advantage still stands despite the one disadvantage". 

But I think the underlying discontent with it is not the stacking so much as the range of things that give it. Being blind or hanging from one hand on a dangling rope while trying to fight is a lot bigger disadvantage than some of the more prosaic examples.  If I wanted to make it more systematic instead of just using rulings, it would be something like:

Overwhelming Advantage - advantage, +2 circumstance.
Overwhelming Advantage, with lesser disadvantage - advantage.

Then parallel Overwhelming Disadvantage options.  A +2 or -2 on top of advantage/disadvantage is pretty nasty when you look at the math, at least in most cases.  It's strictly a GM decision whether or not you get "Overwhelming" but guidelines would look at the number and severity of the sources of it, and would assume you need at least two to qualify in most cases (maybe not being blind).  That lets in a little of the "Player goes fishing for every possible modifier" issue, but still caps it at "Overwhelming" is as far as you can go. 

You could lower the circumstance to +1/-1 and apply it for every source, but that's too fiddly for me, and doesn't really solve the issue of particularly strong advantages or disadvantages.

This type of approach would probably be a more viable alternative to address the perceived psychological benefits of using advantage/disadvantage mentioned by Chris, while still allowing a degree of granularity when it comes to stacking multiple situational factors (both, positive and negative) that could affect a roll.

 

Quote from: areallifetrex on September 25, 2020, 06:08:58 AMI disagree that it's more realistic, per se.

I don't know what you think you are disagreeing with. If are you actually claiming that multiple, extreme advantages having exactly the same probability as a single, ordinary advantage is realistic than we have a fundamental disagreement about what is realistic and how the game universe ought to work and what it should try to simulate.

QuoteI can understand why the probabilities of advantage is less intuitive, and thus feel less realistic,

I don't think anyone claimed that the probability was less intuitive. That may be true, but I certainly don't have any difficulty with assessing the respective probabilities. Where I have a problem is with the result of the probabilities for advantage and disadvantage in 5E for the sorts of examples I and others have provided.

QuoteThat being said, I like the idea of having cumulative adv/disadv combined with trading dice for a flat bonus. Then you can choose between beating a high DC, or more confidence against a low DC, or anything in between.

While that sounds good in theory, in practice selecting between two different options like that is the sort of tradeoff that significantly increases decision time (and even creates decision paralysis) for many if not most players. So for me the handling time increase wouldn't really be the flexibility.

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 25, 2020, 08:34:11 AMSo there came a point in the session where one of the PCs was in a do-or-die situation (essentially a roll away from several PC deaths) and they rolled a 3 when they needed a 12 or better. So it wasn't even an interesting failure like a natural 1 (even if there's no mechanical effect to it, I habitually describing failures via natural 1s as rather comedic levels of bad luck interfering).


Then someone remembered the player had "advantage" on the check so the player rolled again and didn't just succeed, they rolled a natural 20. Critical success!

While turning a 3 into a 20 would be fun, it was equally probable that the player could have rolled two 11s resulting in two unsatisfying near miss failures resulting in PC outcome of "die" instead of "do."

QuoteAnd that is the story of how I went from hating advantage and insisting on static modifiers to rebuilding my game to make an advantage/disadvantage style mechanic the primary source of conditional modifiers

I've never hated the advantage/disadvantage mechanic. I think it is a fairly clever and elegant way of providing a bonus that (usually) takes less time than determining and adding up multiple static modifiers. I just think the implementation in 5E is too simplistic making it inferior to that of other games (such as Barbarians of Lemuria). I first encountered the mechanic in Honor+Intrigue and the implementation there is able to handle multiple adds and disadds. Going from that to the more simplistic, less flexible, and less realistic implementation in 5E undoubtedly caused me to be more dissatisfied, sooner with 5E than if I'd only ever experienced 5E's overly simplistic implementation.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 25, 2020, 10:56:24 AMBut I think the underlying discontent with it is not the stacking so much as the range of things that give it. Being blind or hanging from one hand on a dangling rope while trying to fight is a lot bigger disadvantage than some of the more prosaic examples.

The range (lack of granularity) where an ordinary disadvantage (attacking in poor light) and an overwhelming disadvantage (attacking while blinded) provide the exact same mechanical effect is one problem. But so is the peculiar math where any number of advantages is canceled by one disadvantage (and 1 advantage cancels any number of disadvantages). It's almost as if the designers thought that occasionally having to count past 1 would be a problem for the players or the DM.


A rather simple house rule that fixes the latter problem is to just use the ordinary rules for arithmetic.
  (i) Each (distinct, non overlapping) advantage adds one bonus die.

(ii) Each (distinct, non-overlapping) disadvantage adds one penalty die.

(ii) One bonus die cancels one penalty die (and vice versa).


To expand the range, one could represent an overwhelming advantage or disadvantage by adding or subtracting a static modifier to the bonus or penalty die. Alternatively we could handle the difference between an ordinary and an overwhelming advantage or disadvantage by giving the overwhelming advantage or disadvantage two bonus or penalty dice. We then use rules (i), (ii), and (iii) above to manage varied numbers and types of advantage and disadvantage.

Quote from: Bren on September 25, 2020, 04:45:58 PMWhile turning a 3 into a 20 would be fun, it was equally probable that the player could have rolled two 11s resulting in two unsatisfying near miss failures resulting in PC outcome of "die" instead of "do."

Oh, that happened a lot too in the test (not in that particular scenario, but plenty of flank attacks failed despite the odds; the system was built around a 55-65% hit rate vs. an "average" foe).


The thing is, we humans are wired to remember the outliers not the expected results so those faded into the background... which is basically where static modifers sit all the time because they NEVER act outside of expectation (being static and all).


As I mentioned, I also ran tests using static modifiers and even with the bigger bonuses (+6... statistically better than advantage) when someone remembered to apply them there wasn't the rush... there was no chance of failure in it... just "oh, I hit after all" or "nope, I still miss."


It's really the fact that the second chance (the "save vs. failure") is an unknown that builds the endorphin rush when it pays off. That's where the magic happens in the advantage/disadvantage system.


And from a purely modeling point of view, I find that advantage/disadvantage better models the chaos of combat a bit better than static modifiers. Sometimes you're in position to make a flank attack and some other factor you just couldn't model in D&D level of detail ends up making that advantage not matter at all (i.e. the second roll is no better than the first).


And that is another associated point worth mentioning; how you roll matters. The players who always rolled one d20 at time (either by habit or because they forgot about it) had stronger reactions to the mechanic than those who rolled both at once.


So, ironically, the mechanic produces the most engagement within those who are least engaged with the mechanics.

QuoteI've never hated the advantage/disadvantage mechanic.

I never said you did. But I HATED it and all things 5e with a bloody passion at that point. 4E getting thrown under the bus was the whole reason I started writing my own system in the first place. I ran my playtests with a bias towards NOT wanting advantage to be worth putting in even as an optional rule.


Yet, with all that against it in my head going in, the player engagement with it was so positive and enthusiastic that I HAD to drop my hate for it (and admit 5e did at least one thing right... grumble grumble) and even made it the core rather than the optional mechanic.

Nothing Stacks, Mods Added Last 'PEMDAS', & Assume Round Down Until Told Otherwise. Gold.  8)  Killed most early 5e powergaming dead until half-assed Multiclassing loopholes/synergies & Spell/Archetype PowerCreep were compiled.


Thankfully Multiclassing & Feats are Optional. Beloved return of the "blue box," except typical powergamer tournament mindset ("if it exists it is assumed turned on for exploits") fights against optional tooth & nail. Glad they throw that Optional label on everything UA just in case, too. That and PHB+1 restriction for AL, just in case to shut up chargen mini-gamers. Those outlier players push the envelope to breaking each and every time in all game types and should be leashed with "GM Prerogative, Campaign Optional, and Org Play Restricted" each and every time just to piss in their neverending metagames of whinging corn flakes.  ;)  Don't worry they like it when you bust their balls and establish order.

Quote from: Bren on September 24, 2020, 04:37:14 PM

   
• Attack an opponent who can't see you - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent when your ally is distracting them - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent who is restrained - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent who is prone - you gain advantage on your attack roll.

But if you attack a restrained, prone, opponent who can't see you and is being distracted by your ally - you only gain advantage. There is no additional advantage to the additional benefits. Seems like there should be.

And if you have three or four things giving you advantage, but one thing giving you disadvantage the one disadvantage cancels out all of the other advantages. That seems peculiar, at best.
And before anyone replies -- and I know someone will -- of course I know that there are a number of ways to house rule things to change this. And if I had any interest in DMing 5E I would change things.

If you attack a restrained, prone, blind opponent in my game, you just kill them. Even if they aren't distracted.


I don't view "remember to apply basic common sense" as a houserule suggestion.


I have no particular love for 5E, but any ruleset will break if you try and play out edge cases strictly RAW without a common-sense overlay.

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 26, 2020, 09:35:28 AMAnd that is another associated point worth mentioning; how you roll matters. The players who always rolled one d20 at time (either by habit or because they forgot about it) had stronger reactions to the mechanic than those who rolled both at once.

True. How people roll has a number of effects separate from the shape of the probability distributions.

I see the roll one die then the next as a net negative. Players who do that usually slowly roll one die. Look at it. Then even more slowly roll the second die while their anticipation builds. Then they roll the second die. The process is significantly slower than rolling a single dice. Which turns the potential speed advantage of the roll two dice mechanic over rolling one die and totaling up modifiers, into a disadvantage. And at least in my 5E experience, waiting until it is my next turn while 4 or 5 players do that every round is painful and drags the often painfully slow combat out.
RANT: Why is it that so many players will not even try to figure out what their PC is going to do until the start of their turn? More than half the time, nothing anyone else does during the round is going to negate your planned action anyway. /R

Personally I prefer rolling the dice before totaling up bonuses because it's faster. At least half the time no totaling is necessary because the result is clearly a hit or clearly a miss regardless of a +/- modifier. And if the result is in doubt then we can take the time to total modifiers. The player can then build their anticipation around the close die roll and the effect of the totaled modifiers.

QuoteSo, ironically, the mechanic produces the most engagement within those who are least engaged with the mechanics.

That's an interesting observation. That may be one reason that the anticipation factor that you mention doesn't add much to my experience.

Quote from: Marchand on September 26, 2020, 11:07:09 AM

Quote from: Bren on September 24, 2020, 04:37:14 PM

   
• Attack an opponent who can't see you - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent when your ally is distracting them - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent who is restrained - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent who is prone - you gain advantage on your attack roll.

But if you attack a restrained, prone, opponent who can't see you and is being distracted by your ally - you only gain advantage. There is no additional advantage to the additional benefits. Seems like there should be.

And if you have three or four things giving you advantage, but one thing giving you disadvantage the one disadvantage cancels out all of the other advantages. That seems peculiar, at best.
And before anyone replies -- and I know someone will -- of course I know that there are a number of ways to house rule things to change this. And if I had any interest in DMing 5E I would change things.

If you attack a restrained, prone, blind opponent in my game, you just kill them. Even if they aren't distracted.


I don't view "remember to apply basic common sense" as a houserule suggestion.


I have no particular love for 5E, but any ruleset will break if you try and play out edge cases strictly RAW without a common-sense overlay.

Hey way to ignore the point by nitpicking just one example.

So when you run things if the opponent is blind and prone they are automatically dead? Or is blindness irrelevant when prone?
The presence of more than one condition/situation that gives advantage or disadvantage isn't an edge case its something that happens frequently, especially as characters progress beyond the first few levels. And the rules are very explicit about how multiple conditions (don't) work together.

Quote from: Opaopajr on September 26, 2020, 10:27:16 AMThankfully Multiclassing & Feats are Optional.

I'm certain I'd be happier if the DMs removed more options. But so far, the three DMs I've experienced don't do that. And its clear that most of my fellow players like having lots of options from multiple supplements to choose from. And multi-classing is pretty common. Because that gives even more options.

Damn kids. Always on my fucking lawn.

To answer the question: Nothing. Advantage is its only gimmick. Every other element it had came before it and was executed better. I find the fact that advantage and optional feats is its only claim to fame speaks loudly about how deeply uncreative and poorly designed it is.

Quote from: Opaopajr on September 26, 2020, 10:27:16 AMDon't worry they like it when you bust their balls and establish order.

What a pathetic mindset. Not that your glad that your method of fun is becoming more popular, but the method of fun you don't like is being enforced. That doesn't even demonstrate a love for what you like as much as an angry bitterness for those damn kids and their new toys.


If grognards where consistent with their desires, their ultimate game would be a drama jam where actions where resolved with a coin toss that the GM could always revoke.

Quote from: Bren on September 26, 2020, 01:12:52 PM

Quote from: Opaopajr on September 26, 2020, 10:27:16 AMThankfully Multiclassing & Feats are Optional.

I'm certain I'd be happier if the DMs removed more options. But so far, the three DMs I've experienced don't do that. And its clear that most of my fellow players like having lots of options from multiple supplements to choose from. And multi-classing is pretty common. Because that gives even more options.

Damn kids. Always on my fucking lawn.

Indeed, no one curates to their settings like they used to.  ;D


An early lesson from CCGs is de facto banning of cards through the power curve and the danger of ever expanding pool sets to said curve. If everything is allowed many things which were designed in exclusion of each other can and will fall apart when thrown together without consideration. In such a competitive environment only immediate and unstoppable power will make sense in such a cacophanous card pool. Thus a deck building pre-game becomes part of the play experience, and quite an occupying one at that.

Given RPGs are part of a different paradigm altogether, "all options on!" does not lead to exponentially greater creativity, just greater cacophany. And in such situations people default into scrambling for the loudest instrument they can make to shout over the din. It becomes even worse for newcomers who fall into either analysis-paralysis or following a 'build' they have no idea how to play.

Cacophany of Options pulls attention away from one of the most natural of human activities: let's pretend!, and gatekeeps it under system mastery through the guise of freedom. :-X


And it is the GM who is the master of ceremonies to ensure their setting is evocative, matters, and elicits earnest collaborative play. They set the tone. Surrendering it to the kitchen sink leaves a tone that is as deafening as a garbage disposal.  :P

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 26, 2020, 03:43:33 PM

Quote from: Opaopajr on September 26, 2020, 10:27:16 AMDon't worry they like it when you bust their balls and establish order.

What a pathetic mindset. Not that your glad that your method of fun is becoming more popular, but the method of fun you don't like is being enforced. That doesn't even demonstrate a love for what you like as much as an angry bitterness for those damn kids and their new toys.

If grognards where consistent with their desires, their ultimate game would be a drama jam where actions where resolved with a coin toss that the GM could always revoke.

::)
Obvious comprehension error on your part.  ;)  Powergamers affect all types of games played, regardless of "method" (to the eventual exclusion of all but their own style of play, as dictated by its inherent socio-disruptive design), and was in fact alluded to do so in the previous sentences you clipped out. Also see: online video game communities. But keep tilting at every dragon-windmill!  8)


And the verb is "were," by the way.  :-*

Quote from: Opaopajr on September 26, 2020, 07:25:02 PMObvious comprehension error on your part.  ;)  Powergamers affect all types of games played, regardless of "method" (to the eventual exclusion of all but their own style of play, as dictated by its inherent socio-disruptive design), and was in fact alluded to do so in the previous sentences you clipped out. Also see: online video game communities. But keep tilting at every dragon-windmill!  8)


And the verb is "were," by the way.  :-*

That's  ??? largely just  :o generalized :o word salad. Maybe :D you just suck :-* at >:( attracting :-[ players. :'(


By  8) videogame ;) words: :-[ Git 8) Gud. ::)

8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)

Anyone else starting to think that allowing the emojis was a wrong turn?

What 8) would 8) give 8) you 8) that 8) idea ??? 8) :'(

Quote from: Bren on September 26, 2020, 01:05:57 PM
So when you run things if the opponent is blind and prone they are automatically dead? Or is blindness irrelevant when prone?

Do you really think the course of events in these situations is so uncertain that you need rules to tell you how to handle it?

Quote from: Opaopajr on September 26, 2020, 07:25:02 PMAn early lesson from CCGs is de facto banning of cards through the power curve and the danger of ever expanding pool sets to said curve. If everything is allowed many things which were designed in exclusion of each other can and will fall apart when thrown together without consideration. In such a competitive environment only immediate and unstoppable power will make sense in such a cacophanous card pool. Thus a deck building pre-game becomes part of the play experience, and quite an occupying one at that.

Playing 5E (and reading some of the rules) supports the notion I had that post TSR D&D was overly influenced by Collectible Card Games. Not that this is overly surprising given the new owner was WotC. Some of my fellow players clearly get some of the same kind of enjoyment collecting supplements and building new characters in their 5E play as they would collecting and selecting a deck in a CCG.

QuoteGiven RPGs are part of a different paradigm altogether, "all options on!" does not lead to exponentially greater creativity, just greater cacophany. And in such situations people default into scrambling for the loudest instrument they can make to shout over the din. It becomes even worse for newcomers who fall into either analysis-paralysis or following a 'build' they have no idea how to play.

Cacophany of Options pulls attention away from one of the most natural of human activities: let's pretend!, and gatekeeps it under system mastery through the guise of freedom. :-X

I always disliked "all options on" or kitchen sink settings because I strongly dislike inconsistent settings. I hadn't considered it from the perspective of forcing players to shout over a cacophonous din. Interesting perspective.

Quote from: Marchand on September 26, 2020, 10:09:17 PM

Quote from: Bren on September 26, 2020, 01:05:57 PM
So when you run things if the opponent is blind and prone they are automatically dead? Or is blindness irrelevant when prone?

Do you really think the course of events in these situations is so uncertain that you need rules to tell you how to handle it?

Are you really unable to answer a simple question?

EDIT: It seems the new interface is annoying. It took 5 edits to delete a superflous "[/quote]" at the end of my text and at least 2 more edits to add a blank line above my edit.

Quote from: Bren on September 26, 2020, 11:18:53 PM

Quote from: Marchand on September 26, 2020, 10:09:17 PM

Quote from: Bren on September 26, 2020, 01:05:57 PM
So when you run things if the opponent is blind and prone they are automatically dead? Or is blindness irrelevant when prone?

Do you really think the course of events in these situations is so uncertain that you need rules to tell you how to handle it?

Are you really unable to answer a simple question?

EDIT: It seems the new interface is annoying. It took 5 edits to delete a superflous "

" at the end of my text and at least 2 more edits to add a blank line above my edit.



It's just that if the question is misconceived, then answering it takes the discussion further along the wrong track.


You don't need to stack positive mods for a PC to be able to do a defenceless opponent. They just do it. Use your brain, not the rules.


Agree on the new interface...

Quote from: Marchand on September 27, 2020, 03:28:43 AM

Quote from: Bren on September 26, 2020, 11:18:53 PM

Quote from: Marchand on September 26, 2020, 10:09:17 PM

Quote from: Bren on September 26, 2020, 01:05:57 PM
So when you run things if the opponent is blind and prone they are automatically dead? Or is blindness irrelevant when prone?

Do you really think the course of events in these situations is so uncertain that you need rules to tell you how to handle it?

Are you really unable to answer a simple question?

EDIT: It seems the new interface is annoying. It took 5 edits to delete a superflous "

" at the end of my text and at least 2 more edits to add a blank line above my edit.

If the question is misconceived, then answering it takes the discussion further along the wrong track.


You don't need the rules to tell you to stack positive mods for a character to be able to off a defenceless opponent. They just do it. Any ruleset is entitled to assume people will use their brain.


Agree on the new interface...

Quote from: Marchand on September 27, 2020, 03:29:19 AMYou don't need the rules to tell you to stack positive mods for a character to be able to off a defenceless opponent. They just do it. Any ruleset is entitled to assume people will use their brain.


Agree on the new interface...

Well the entire argument was that "Defenseless" was just one possible example, and the cherrypicked one at that. "Use your brain not the rules" is just not really a cohesive argument. You can just replace ALL the rules and just play drama games. Which again I feel is what people that aggressively hate any sort of help with resolving scenarios beyond a 20% chance to influence dice odds think.

Quote from: Bren on September 26, 2020, 11:18:53 PMI always disliked "all options on" or kitchen sink settings because I strongly dislike inconsistent settings.

You can have a consistent kitchen sink setting though; it's just near impossible to do by accretion (ex. Forgotten Realms is a horrible kitchen sink because it started out a fairly Tolkien-isn fantasy setting and all the other stuff just sorta got stuck to that after the fact over the course of decades.

By contrast, Nerath (the 4E default setting) was built from the ground up to be a functional and consistent kitchen sink to the point that some of the less traditional races (tieflings and dragonborn) are almost better integrated into the setting's history than more traditional races like elves or dwarves.

A similar functional and consistent kitchen sink is Rifts.

The common element though is that they were BUILT to be kitchen sinks rather than becoming them.

For an interesting reference point in this; consider Eberron. It was built in the 3.5e era to be a kitchen sink. One of the tag lines for its promotion was that "everything in D&D has a place in Eberron."

Well, that is until 4E came along and they had to figure out how Dragonborn fit into the world. Now it wasn't as bad as 4E Forgotten Realms where they practically had to blow up the setting to get all the new parts to fit, but it was still quite obviously a retcon and therefore added some inconsistencies into the setting that weren't there before.

The above is one of the reasons I've worked so hard making sure all the parts of my own kitchen sink setting are coherent and work together.

For example, there is exactly ONE sapient species that is both natural and native to the campaign world (humans), one "natural" category of spiritual being that interacted with them (primal spirits), and all the beasts began as one natural to our own world. Every other species (sapient and non-sapient) is either created by or from those species for understandable reasons at different points in history.

Magic item attunement has done a pretty good job of keeping a lid on the proliferation of magic items per character. I'm not sure I like it as a mechanic, but it does work.

Quote from: mightybrain on September 27, 2020, 01:58:58 PM
Magic item attunement has done a pretty good job of keeping a lid on the proliferation of magic items per character. I'm not sure I like it as a mechanic, but it does work.

I first ran into "attunement" in the Arcanis RPG (Paradigm's attempt to escape WotC's licensing requirements before they realized Pathfinder would allow 3.5e to remain viable) which came out c. 2008.


They did it better there too. Attunement applied to nearly every magic item and had fluff elements related to how the overlapping magic fields caused issues. You started able to use only a few items at once, but as you gained experience you learned to better mitigate the effects of those fields and so could carry additional items.


There really isn't much of anything unique to 5e (even advantage, as has been mentioned, is just new to D&D not new to RPGs). The only really unique part is the particular combinations of the mechanics and fluff.

I thought the question was what are the best ideas, not what are the new or unique ideas.

Quote from: mightybrain on September 27, 2020, 06:16:41 PM
I thought the question was what are the best ideas, not what are the new or unique ideas.

5es best idea is being inoffensive. I think its very few peoples most favorite edition of D&D.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 27, 2020, 06:19:56 PM

5es best idea is being inoffensive. I think its very few peoples most favorite edition of D&D.

Based on its popularity, you are probably wrong.

The best thing about 5E is its status as a lingua franca for RPGs. It is beloved by many, but--more importantly--well liked by even more. It's easy enough to run and comes with many of the tropes D&D-fans enjoy. That just makes it easy to run and build a legacy, where you can share war stories of campaigns.


I just wish they would do single modules again. It's a shame that these are all 3rd party.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger on September 28, 2020, 02:23:34 AMBased on its popularity, you are probably wrong.

Mcdonalds is very popular. Very few people would say its their favorite source of meals. Serviceable, but largely bland. That's 5e. Those that do find it their favorite are those that haven't played many different RPGs.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 28, 2020, 08:11:07 AM
Mcdonalds is very popular. Very few people would say its their favorite source of meals. Serviceable, but largely bland. That's 5e. Those that do find it their favorite are those that haven't played many different RPGs.

That analogy doesn't apply here. McDonald's is nobody's only food source. D&D is many peoples' only game. And even then, there's nothing wrong with liking it the most. Even I did, and I have played pretty much everything under the sun. You live in a pretty fucked up world of ass-backwards assumptions.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger on September 28, 2020, 08:13:59 AMThat analogy doesn't apply here. McDonald's is nobody's only food source. D&D is.

Because new RPGS are expensive (In time, money, or both) to get into and require wrangling cats to get people to get into a new ruleset. Id say very few people get to play their fantastic but high quality RPG but more the one that's popular and marketable. This applies to D&D as a whole, where its power is largely marketing and establishment, moreso then anything uber unique it has done.


This serves more to support my argument further.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 28, 2020, 08:19:20 AM
Because new RPGS are expensive (In time, money, or both) to get into and require wrangling cats to get people to get into a new ruleset. Id say very few people get to play their fantastic but high quality RPG but more the one that's popular and marketable. This applies to D&D as a whole, where its power is largely marketing and establishment, moreso then anything uber unique it has done.


This serves more to support my argument further.

Again, no. If that were true, D&D4E should've been a massive success. You don't like 5E, that's fine. But what it does very well is being an accessible RPG. And being recognisably D&D.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger on September 28, 2020, 02:23:34 AM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 27, 2020, 06:19:56 PM
5es best idea is being inoffensive. I think its very few peoples most favorite edition of D&D.

Based on its popularity, you are probably wrong.

No, it's pretty much on target. The best description of 5e I've heard is that its "everyone's second favorite edition of D&D" which means when you've got a group who doesn't agree on a favorite system its an easy default.

No role-playing is better than bad role-playing, but there's a LOT of mediocre and when you're hungry you'll settle for second best just to get some table time in.

That's 5e in a nutshell.

Bland, inoffensive fast food that you play because you can actually find 4-5 players at the FLGS in your small town to agree to it even though two would really rather be playing Pathfinder, one would prefer something OSR, one is a 4E fan who has given up on ever finding a group to play with, and one is a newbie who doesn't even realize there are other editions of D&D.

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 28, 2020, 08:57:14 AM
No, it's pretty much on target. The best description of 5e I've heard is that its "everyone's second favorite edition of D&D" which means when you've got a group who doesn't agree on a favorite system its an easy default.

Nobody cares what you have heard. We're not talking rpgsite members or grognards here, but the general gaming crowd.

The McDonald's analogy is, like all analogies, only useful up to a point.  5E is better than that, but the analogy isn't entirely wrong either.  McDonald's is in part bland because it is very regimented.  They are geared to get people who don't pay attention much to what they are doing to still produce food that follows a pattern.  Even so, a well-managed McDonald's is still superior to a poorly=managed one.  Not vastly so, because that's the limit to the formula, but notably so. 

It would be more accurate to say 5E is like D&D using the raw ingredients that arrive in McDonald's.  A smart GM is going to supplement with other stuff, but you can use what is coming in, especially if you don't stick to the formula. 

A different (but still flawed) analogy is that 5E is like renting a car in the 1980's and getting a Chevy.  Nothing special, but you could easily do a whole lot worse.  If you were really looking forward to cruising the interstate in a Mercedes or a BMW, you'll be disappointed.  If you just viewed it as vehicle to go somewhere and do what you want, it doesn't get in your way, and it's got AC and a radio.  And probably works.  And if you were doing something a little non-standard on back country roads, probably works better than one of the "better" options.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger on September 28, 2020, 08:59:12 AMNobody cares what you have heard. We're not talking rpgsite members or grognards here, but the general gaming crowd.

'Nobody cares for your anecdotal evidence! They care for MY anecdotal evidence!'

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 28, 2020, 09:13:13 AM
The McDonald's analogy is, like all analogies, only useful up to a point.  5E is better than that, but the analogy isn't entirely wrong either.  McDonald's is in part bland because it is very regimented.  They are geared to get people who don't pay attention much to what they are doing to still produce food that follows a pattern.  Even so, a well-managed McDonald's is still superior to a poorly=managed one.  Not vastly so, because that's the limit to the formula, but notably so.

As I said. Its executed 'well enough' largely through formula. And your right I might risk playing a 5e game more then some obscure indie thing because I know what it is and how it will be executed.


But your metaphor about MCdonalds materials doesn't really work in its favor because most Mcdonalds materials are largely preservatives or cost cutting measures. If you want to create a 'Mcdonalds' type meal, then its original type ingredients are much better (Real beef, real bread, real vegetables) then what you would get from Mcdonalds.


You can customize 5e, but I don't really see its raw materials as all that fantastic. I remember the edition Mearls wanted to make before 5e came out, which was supposed to be an awesome mix of all sorts of ingredients and options, but that edition never came to be and 5e is a pale shadow of what Next was supposed to be.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 28, 2020, 09:31:38 AM
'Nobody cares for your anecdotal evidence! They care for MY anecdotal evidence!'

The vast numbers of measurable 5E players disagree. Even if we only take those who only play 5E it's already many more than for any other system. Try harder.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger on September 28, 2020, 08:59:12 AM
Nobody cares what you have heard. We're not talking rpgsite members or grognards here, but the general gaming crowd.

And you, obviously, speak for the general gaming crowd. [/sarcasm]


It's funny you think I'm some grognard or getting my opinions from here. I loathe OSR-style games and my favorite edition of D&D is 4E (I acknowledge it had its issues, but it's the first version I was ever able to make PCs I enjoyed without the system fighting me).


No, "everyone's 2nd favorite" is the general sentiment about 5e on the ground in my hometown. It's why I've been able to get a fairly broad spectrum of play testers for my own system (ranging from early teens through late 40s); There is no rabid attachment to 5e so offering up another system to try out for a session is a fairly easy sell.

While 5E is not my favorite version of D&D. I do kind of agree Nerzenjager that it is for the moment anyway the most popular edition of D&D.


So much so that Paizo who build a 3.5 clone to draw in unhappy 4E players decided to make a 2E of their rpg and borrow some elements. from it. Even if it meant alienating the 1E PF fanbase.


Just because it's not played in your neck of the woods does not mean it's not popular. By that logic I played in a short term Rifts campaing using Discord well that means Rifts is popular then. It's not only a matter of a gaming table or town it's a large segment of the fanbase. When it comes to D&D it may not be the most popular versions it's probably damn close.

5E is so popular that even 3PP who were publishing material for 1E PF have switched over to 5E for the most part.

As for speaking for the general gaming crowd some gamers who prefer one edition of a certain rpg tend to lose total objectivity, then tend to just ignore anything that goes their carefully constructed personal narratives because of "reasons and feels". I am no huge fan of 5E by any means and will stick to playing PF 1E to claim that 5E is not popular is just not wanting to admit they could be wrong. Whatever your smoking I don't want it.

Quote from: Bren on September 26, 2020, 01:05:57 PM
So when you run things if the opponent is blind and prone they are automatically dead? Or is blindness irrelevant when prone?

No, proneness is irrelevant when you're blind. I had the same distaste for lack of nuance in the case of multiple advantage/disadvantage conditions until I used the mechanic for a while. Here's the thing: I found that adjustments for such nuance did not create materially different outcomes. And a single yes/no is easier and faster. So if your purpose is emulation of an "advantage" from the character's point of view, I find the mechanic works awesomely. If your goal is to provide an obvious mathematical advantage as, say, a dopamine reward for the clever player, then I would agree that something more nuanced might work better. Personally, my goal is the former, and I find the latter distracting to it.

Quote from: sureshot on September 28, 2020, 10:11:15 AM
While 5E is not my favorite version of D&D. I do kind of agree Nerzenjager that it is for the moment anyway the most popular edition of D&D.

Not saying its not popular.

Quote from: Zalman on September 28, 2020, 10:12:25 AMSo if you're purpose is emulation of an "advantage" from the character's point of view

Then stacking advantage is a thing human beings have been doing for all of history for all time. The execution of the advantage/disadvantage system actively discourages planning ahead or stacking the environment in your favor.
Again I played 5e for a 6 month campaign with good friends and a good GM. We where largely unimpressed in the end.


While I don't super need hyper complex in depth rules measuring my impact weapon by square inch of weight and compared to a body chart with 300 locations, I do like knowing what I can or can't do, and what I can develop to do more in character. I don't need a ton but I need SOMETHING.


I found Sine Nominee does this sort of thing really well. Like I like playing giant stompy characters. In 5e that maxes out at advantage for STR, and what that means in terms of what I can smash and what I can do largely depends on the GMs whims with no support or help for them to make decisions. Which if it keeps happening slows down the game (or turns it into a drama slam). While Godbound makes being a big o dragon both mechanically simple, but really satisfying.

5E could be ground-breaking in retrospect, but won't be.  It could be if WotC went to design 6E with the idea that 5E gets some things right but also is off in a few places and lacking in implementation and follow through in a lot of places.  (That is, 5E isn't nearly as good a game as it could have been even stuck with its design mistakes.)

Such a 6E would be largely compatible with 5E--not entirely, but close enough to not invalidate most 5E adventures and campaigns.  Unfortunately, there is zero evidence that WotC understands their own game well enough to pull that off.  So what they are going to do is either too little (not the worse outcome considering), too much (throw out the good parts and start over with a bunch of new mistakes), or the wrong things (woke crap and trying to extend their streak of continuous marketing fails).     

My current bet is they'll change enough stuff to make 5E adventures not entirely useful (at least mechanically), but not fix anything.  But then, I expect to be off that treadmill anyway.

Products like Xanathar's and Tasha's indicate that they might be taking the modularity approach they touted in the playtest and that they're going with incremental tweaks that don't invalidate all your previous products.  It just might mean that the organized play rule becomes PHB/XGtE/Tasha's+1 instead of PHB+1 for character building.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 28, 2020, 10:35:48 AM
I do like knowing what I can or can't do

Ah, we differ there. I prefer to invent things to do based on each particular situation, without any pre-determination of the available "moves" for my character. It certainly sounds like you prefer the player-centric model, rewarding good decisions with dice bonuses.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger on September 28, 2020, 09:33:35 AMThe vast numbers of measurable 5E players disagree. Even if we only take those who only play 5E it's already many more than for any other system. Try harder.

Are there measurable numbers of 5e players? The only data I've seen is worded in such a way as to include people that don't actually play the game. I will agree that it is currently the most played system, but D&D has held that title for almost the entirety of it's life.

Quote from: Zalman on September 28, 2020, 11:02:48 AMAh, we differ there. I prefer to invent things to do based on each particular situation, without any pre-determination of the available "moves" for my character. It certainly sounds like you prefer the player-centric model, rewarding good decisions with dice bonuses.

Well not player centric but just logic centric to me. I actually mostly GM. However when I do play I use every single resource to my advantage. Not in a "Munchkin" sense where I get the Maxxorz numbers. But stuff like where I figured out how to turn a shrinking power into a immobilizing mud bomb. Which usually does prompt improvisation (and sighs at times) from the GM.


But as a GM I find if I just resolve everything add hock I feel dissatisfied. The less I feel my players understood what they could and couldn't do to get the scenario to their advantage, the more I feel I'm just playing with myself. I like to be surprised by player wit and ingenuity. Not in a munchkin sense but their creativity. And I feel that 5e just doesn't have a good framework for that.

Quote from: KingCheops on September 28, 2020, 11:00:19 AMProducts like Xanathar's and Tasha's indicate that they might be taking the modularity approach they touted in the playtest.

Napkin scribble side-rules is a far cry from the modularity they promised. Under that logic its about as modular as D&D 3e or Pathfinder.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 28, 2020, 12:33:00 PMNapkin scribble side-rules is a far cry from the modularity they promised. Under that logic its about as modular as D&D 3e or Pathfinder.

Yeah, the promised "tactical module" for 4E turned out to be vaporware. "Play like its any edition of D&D at the same table" was just market-speak to keep those who felt they were being thrown under the bus quiet until it was too late to change anything.

The lesson I took from that debacle (beyond, build your own not-5e system) was that genuine optional rules are a plus. I already mentioned my advantage/disadvantage testing moving static bonuses to the optional section, but another part of my process was to expressly identify edition differences and, where practical, add optional rules to make the system play more in that fashion.

Quote

Quote from: meAre you really unable to answer a simple question?

If the question is misconceived, then answering it takes the discussion further along the wrong track.So that would be a yes.

QuoteYou don't need the rules to tell you to stack positive mods for a character to be able to off a defenceless opponent.They just do it. Any ruleset is entitled to assume people will use their brain.

True. A working brain is a useful thing. Mine indicates that there situations somewhere in between (a) take the best of two rolls and (b) you automatically succeed. Yours, apparently, does not.EDIT: Damn it. Somehow the quotes disappeared. This new interface frustrates me. Must find a better way of composing and posting.Edit: Damn it. This interface is frustrating. It screws up something, I try to edit to fix it and that screws up something else. Must find a better way of composing and posting.

Quote from: Zalman on September 28, 2020, 10:12:25 AM

Quote from: Bren on September 26, 2020, 01:05:57 PM
So when you run things if the opponent is blind and prone they are automatically dead? Or is blindness irrelevant when prone?

No, proneness is irrelevant when you're blind. I had the same distaste for lack of nuance in the case of multiple advantage/disadvantage conditions until I used the mechanic for a while. Here's the thing: I found that adjustments for such nuance did not create materially different outcomes. And a single yes/no is easier and faster.

I don't agree with you that proneness is irrelevant (though it clearly is according to the RAW). But if I want fast and easy I'll toss a coin or roll a six-sided die and choose high/low or odd/even.

QuoteSo if your purpose is emulation of an "advantage" from the character's point of view, I find the mechanic works awesomely.

As a player, I don't. (And of course my clever characters find it unsatisfying that there is no advantage to using multiple advantageous tactics at one time and since he is unable to counter a single disadvantage with any number of advantageous tactics.)

QuoteIf your goal is to provide an obvious mathematical advantage as, say, a dopamine reward for the clever player, then I would agree that something more nuanced might work better. Personally, my goal is the former, and I find the latter distracting to it.

If your goal is a simplistic solution that satisfies players who are barely engaged or not too clever by giving them a dopamine reward without taxing their brains, than simple advantage/disadvantage works. (See I can play the ad hominem game too.)

I'm not the DM for 5E, so my dissatisfaction with the mechanic comes from playing D&D and finding that (due to the advantage mechanic) the system doesn't reward multiple advantageous cases, situations, or tactical maneuvers or overcome a single disadvantage. I accept that it isn't going to bother everyone. It doesn't often seem to bother most of my fellow players. And the DMs seem pretty happy simply following the rules as written.

Quote from: Bren on September 28, 2020, 02:56:10 PM

Quote from: Zalman on September 28, 2020, 10:12:25 AM
Here's the thing: I found that adjustments for such nuance did not create materially different outcomes. And a single yes/no is easier and faster.

I don't agree with you that proneness is irrelevant (though it clearly is according to the RAW). But if I want fast and easy I'll toss a coin or roll a six-sided die and choose high/low or odd/even.

Ah, but that would provide materially different results at the table, and that's the point. If someone has the better of their opponent because the opponent is blinded, that's nearly always definitive by itself, and not the 50/50 chance of your coin toss. Adding more advantage for "proneness" doesn't change that outcome frequently enough to be worried about (in my personal experience, perhaps never), and certainly not often enough to justify any increase in mechanical complexity for me.

Blindness alone shouldn't be equivalent to automatic death or even automatic critical hit on the target by any attacker--and it certainly isn't according to the rules of 5E. According to the rules the blinded character has disadvantage on attacks they make and any attacker has advantage attacking the blinded character. Rolling best (or worst) one out of two rolls is far from "nearly always definitive by itself."

Quote from: Nerzenjäger on September 28, 2020, 08:23:44 AM

....

Again, no. If that were true, D&D4E should've been a massive success. You don't like 5E, that's fine. But what it does very well is being an accessible RPG. And being recognisably D&D.

Actually, compared to every other non-D&D RPG out at the time; 4e was a massive success.

It just wasn't a massive success worthy of the 800lb gorilla of the hobby.

It just didn't hit 3e numbers, and the design was different enough that they hemorrhaged enough 3e players to be eventually outsold by a clone..

The 3e clone did well enough to be able to keep the 5e D&D designers honest. (no more of that MMO crap in our D&D dude!)

5e is "everyone's favorite edition" precisely because it is the bland ass 'macdonalds' of D&D rpg editions.

Who cares if there are not as much character options as 3e?

Who cares if there are rpg's out there with better combat and action mechanics?

No one. No one cares.

Because it says D&D on the cover.

Because it is mechanically recognizable as D&D, and doesn't use the weird 4e MMO nomenclature.

It may not tick anyone's best eveah! boxes, but it doesn't tick the hate ones either.

It says D&D on the cover and it is mechanically Good Enough.

Never underestimate the power of "Good Enough" when you are the 800lb gorilla market leader,

Greetings!


Ahh. Well, is D&D 5E the best game edition ever? I don't know. 5E seems to be a stripped down version of 3E, and flexible and accessible. I can tweak and change things around, and make the system and the campaign run the way I prefer. I did the same thing with 3E, and D&D back in the day, with AD&D. So, there's nothing really new about that, to be honest. I'm also aware that not everyone is a hardcore grognard like myself. Lots of ordinary gamers just want to roll up a fantasy character and play. Wives, girlfriends, and assorted relatives are not likely to care one whit for all of the uber detail that we often discuss here. I've attempted to engage some with exploring more lore, different, older systems or mechanics, and the why of option A instead of option B--and they often giggle and look at me like a deer-in-headlights. Their eyes glaze over, I'm afraid. *laughing* Meanwhile, at two different local game stores--both have one or more nights per week scheduled for D&D games--everyone involved plays D&D 5E. When these people discuss bringing their kids or teenagers into the game, or their friends or wives or whatever--D&D 5E is always the game these other people are interested in learning and playing. No one is much interested in playing AD&D, let alone OD&D or something even more obscure. Forget Pathfinder, too. That seems to be the overwhelming dynamic in play.


I do like D&D 5E's simplicity, adaptability, and flexibility. There are many things that you can subtract and add to the game system, without breaking it and causing too many problems or difficulties. I add many OSR aspects to my own campaigns, and the game works just fine. Also like Nerzenjager's commentary about D&D 5E being the "Lingua Franca" of gaming is very true. The game has become mainstream, and many new people, perhaps especially women, find the game attractive and appealing. That doesn't just mean there is more women playing the game than ever before, it also means that *men* that are in the hobby do not face obstacles and hassles--but instead are met with encouragement and enthusiasm. That kind of heightened popularity and accessibility makes gaming easier and more fun for everyone.


Semper Fidelis,


SHARK

Quote from: SHARK on September 28, 2020, 08:38:15 PMThat kind of heightened popularity and accessibility makes gaming easier and more fun for everyone.

I don't really blame 5e for this, since I think it just got lucky with timing, but I don't necessarily value mass appeal.


The fact that a niche thing can get more popular by distilling (and supplanting) the original isn't really mind blowing. But Id rather have something be niche then supplanted. I have that feel with Star Trek for instance.

I'm not at all surprised that a casual player says they want to play D&D 5E. That statement doesn't necessarily mean that they actually want to play 5E instead of something else. It may just be the only name they know. D&D 5E is the Kleenex tissue of RPGs.

Quote from: SHARK on September 28, 2020, 08:38:15 PMLots of ordinary gamers just want to roll up a fantasy character and play.

I suspect that nowadays the popularity of World of Warcraft has made D&D's level-based style of play and smorgasbord of races and character classes familiar to some people who never played a tabletop RPG and HBO's Game of Thrones has made fantasy familiar to an even wider audience. So D&D has all that going for it too.

After continued reflection....


PHB + 1
(Player's Handbook + Xanathar's Guide)


That's plenty of material to offer at your table.  I don't want to hear any whining about that not being enough options.  Take these two books, and create your character.  No, I don't care what they were talking about on Unearthed Arcana this week.  You have 2 books to build from.  It's enough.

Just because so many people I assert I don't exist: 5e is my favourite edition of TSR/WotC D&D.

I didn't have a strong preference between Mentzer & Holmes back in the day; the next-door neighbour got the one book, then I got the other. 1e's OK but its assumptions about how the world works are just as strong as the modern games, in core 2e I didn't see anything that wasn't there in 1e aside from organisation, 3e starts off nice but has too much complication and rules mastery and progression-planning required, 4e was promising to read but at my table with my players *always* devolved into a skirmish game; 5e seems to work for us.

Labyrinth Lord was a great ruleset for introducing a bunch of (pre-)teens and their parents to the hobby. Rather than go back to B/X today, I'd play ACKS. ASSH has a nice setting but I don't care for the baroque layer over 1e. I'm sure I'd enjoy a game using most of the Sine Nomine rulesets. LotFP seems like a reasonable stripped-down ruleset but the support is awful.

And there are eleven or twelve non-D&D titles on the bookshelf which we don't need to go through now, or the OSR variants I've read & ended up discarding without playing.
[/size]

Yes, it's just a bunch of guys who can't fathom that their favourite RPG is being ignored, while 5E is not only hugely popular, but also many, many, many people's favourite RPG.


And it's also funny how there is constant talk about it being badly designed or being bland. I'm more of an OD&D guy, but let's not kid ourselves, many of these people haven't run a by-the-book old school game in a long time, maybe ever. To take my own example: 0E is great and rightfully beloved, but it comes with MANY of it's own flaws, if played the way it is described in the LBBs.

Quote from: Naburimannu on September 29, 2020, 04:16:21 AMJust because so many people I assert I don't exist: 5e is my favourite edition of TSR/WotC D&D.

Didn't say you didn't exist. Just that there where not that many people that would call 5e their favorite edition.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger on September 29, 2020, 04:52:53 AM
Yes, it's just a bunch of guys who can't fathom that their favourite RPG is being ignored, while 5E is not only hugely popular, but also many, many, many people's favourite RPG.

I suppose fathoming it makes it more sad then provocative. I can believe that Star Trek: Into Darkness is many peoples most favorite element of Star Trek. And it was hugely successful (moreso then the rest of Star Trek). Didn't make it good.


And to your example: Yeah all editions of D&D have flaws Im not delusional. I find 5es main fault not its flaws but lack of good. I find it the least ambitious edition of D&D. So while I dislike PLAYING 4e more, I respect it more.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 29, 2020, 08:47:12 AM

Quote from: Naburimannu on September 29, 2020, 04:16:21 AMJust because so many people I assert I don't exist: 5e is my favourite edition of TSR/WotC D&D.

Didn't say you didn't exist. Just that there where not that many people that would call 5e their favorite edition.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger on September 29, 2020, 04:52:53 AM
Yes, it's just a bunch of guys who can't fathom that their favourite RPG is being ignored, while 5E is not only hugely popular, but also many, many, many people's favourite RPG.

I suppose fathoming it makes it more sad then provocative. I can believe that Star Trek: Into Darkness is many peoples most favorite element of Star Trek. And it was hugely successful (moreso then the rest of Star Trek). Didn't make it good.


And to your example: Yeah all editions of D&D have flaws Im not delusional. I find 5es main fault not its flaws but lack of good. I find it the least ambitious edition of D&D. So while I dislike PLAYING 4e more, I respect it more.

It's possible that even if 5E isn't someone's favorite edition or rule set, that the 5E gaming culture and opportunities are their favorite.  It's a pretty active and welcoming gaming community.  There isn't the same chance of early character death, as seen in AD&D; and there isn't the same dire need to acquire system mastery and focus upon optimization, as with 3.5 Edition.  5th Edition is the shallow end of the pool, with hand rails.  Some people are drawn to that.

Quote from: Razor 007 on September 29, 2020, 10:09:18 AMIt's possible that even if 5E isn't someone's favorite edition or rule set, that the 5E gaming culture and opportunities are their favorite.  It's a pretty active and welcoming gaming community.  There isn't the same chance of early character death, as seen in AD&D; and there isn't the same dire need to acquire system mastery and focus upon optimization, as with 3.5 Edition.  5th Edition is the shallow end of the pool, with hand rails.  Some people are drawn to that.

Maybe. I find welcomingness overrated. Again my issue with 5e isn't its excess of bad, but lack of good. It feels to me like a modern art piece where everybody sees what they want in it, when its just a pair of glasses somebody left on the floor.

I don't understand the kind of attitude of a rpg community being welcome as being a bad thing. Would you rather the rpg community treated you like an asshole and a pariah.


As usually some gamers don't fail to disappoint in being social retarded misanthropes. I rather join a community that welcomes me than one that gatekeeps. That's just me though. I can tell you that the player picked to join the table is not the one who questions why the group is so welcoming.


5E has many flaws being a welcoming edition of an rpg is not one of them imo.

5E isn't as bad as the critics make it out to be and isn't as good as its fans think it is.  Surprise, surprise.

It has more going for it than legacy and a name.  Any criticism taking the assumption that is all it has is blinkered.  You may not prefer what it is doing, but it is doing some things well. It is a very casual-friendly game, in that it is not punishing to people only partially paying attention, but escalates quickly for those that fall shy of that.  That is, it isn't a game that will usually push the players hard, but there is still some solid player agency there.  (In the hands of a moderately competent or better GM, the push can be increased.)

It doesn't help that the execution is where most of the lack exists--both in what is done poorly, what is done OK but not well, and what is simply not done at all.

Despite all the WotC editions comparisons to Magic and World of Warcraft, 5E is not a good comparison to either, not even on a business/design/strategy/marketing tier where such comparison could have some merit.  Blizzard is known (or at least was) for taking fairly pedestrian ideas and then polishing them until they are nigh flawless.  5E is the opposite--WotC took some very solid design and then ruthlessly and aggressively settled for mediocrity in the delivery.  This does make it easier to house rule than 3E/4E.  Whether that is worth doing depends on how much you want your game to be casual-friendly.

Quote from: sureshot on September 29, 2020, 10:28:12 AM
I don't understand the kind of attitude of a rpg community being welcome as being a bad thing. Would you rather the rpg community treated you like an asshole and a pariah.


As usually some gamers don't fail to disappoint in being social retarded misanthropes. I rather join a community that welcomes me than one that gatekeeps. That's just me though. I can tell you that the player picked to join the table is not the one who questions why the group is so welcoming.


5E has many flaws being a welcoming edition of an rpg is not one of them imo.

The wElCoMiNg CoMmUnItY is a redherring, just like the idea that no one likes 5e and all the other things nobody every said or argued against, yet people thought to bring up. Basically...

Every.

Single.

Argument.

...that has been made along this line since Nerzenjäger replied to Shrieking Banshee last page have been either a complete fallacy or completely irrelevant to what was actually said.

Quote from: sureshot on September 29, 2020, 10:28:12 AM
I don't understand the kind of attitude of a rpg community being welcome as being a bad thing. Would you rather the rpg community treated you like an asshole and a pariah.

I didn't say I said I wanted 'Unwelcoming'. But its a toss up between 'More In Depth Discussion and harsher critique' or 'Welcoming but more soft edged'.


I value the former. That's why I'm here. Also 'Welcoming' communities have a way to become very hostile if you touch their sacred cows.

Quote from: VisionStorm on September 29, 2020, 01:15:39 PM...that has been made along this line since Nerzenjäger replied to Shrieking Banshee last page have been either a complete fallacy or completely irrelevant to what was actually said.

Err....I can stop if need be.

Are we talking about the  same "Welcoming Community" whose leader "fired" a bunch of D&D fans?


The same "welcoming community" who disparage gamers who don't see eye to eye with their own views?


The same "welcoming community" who eat their own like Mearls, Perkins, etc.  when they "step out of line"?








No thank you.

I'll stick with the community full of asshats who don't give a shit what that  "welcoming community" thinks ;D

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 29, 2020, 01:21:10 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on September 29, 2020, 01:15:39 PM...that has been made along this line since Nerzenjäger replied to Shrieking Banshee last page have been either a complete fallacy or completely irrelevant to what was actually said.

Err....I can stop if need be.

Is not your fault people can't argue against what you actually said.  :P

Quote from: JeffB on September 29, 2020, 01:32:11 PM
Are we talking about the  same "Welcoming Community" whose leader "fired" a bunch of D&D fans?


The same "welcoming community" who disparage gamers who don't see eye to eye with their own views?


The same "welcoming community" who eat their own like Mearls, Perkins, etc.  when they "step out of line"?








No thank you.

I'll stick with the community full of asshats who don't give a shit what that  "welcoming community" thinks

Why would you not want to be part of the welcoming community that will cancel your ass is you said the wrong thing, though?  :-\

Quote from: JeffB on September 29, 2020, 01:32:11 PM
Are we talking about the  same "Welcoming Community" whose leader "fired" a bunch of D&D fans?

No.

Quote from: JeffB on September 29, 2020, 01:32:11 PM
The same "welcoming community" who disparage gamers who don't see eye to eye with their own views?

No.

Quote from: JeffB on September 29, 2020, 01:32:11 PM
The same "welcoming community" who eat their own like Mearls, Perkins, etc.  when they "step out of line"?

No.


At least that didn't seem to be what anyone else was talking about.


Instead of talking about gaming there is way too much of this going on:

I suppose that I should have been more specific and the community at large and not the Woke SJW employees and fans. I suppose everyone sometimes needs everything drawn to them in wax crayon on paper 

Quote from: JeffB on September 29, 2020, 01:32:11 PM
Are we talking about the  same "Welcoming Community" whose leader "fired" a bunch of D&D fans?

That was that SJW Woke Mearls and the the equally woke fans. I don't assume they speak for everyone unlike some people so No.

Quote from: JeffB on September 29, 2020, 01:32:11 PM
The same "welcoming community" who disparage gamers who don't see eye to eye with their own views?

Why would anyone with even a micro-gram of a functioning brain or common sense think that is what I or most sane and people think as welcoming. No

Quote from: JeffB on September 29, 2020, 01:32:11 PM
The same "welcoming community" who eat their own like Mearls, Perkins, etc.  when they "step out of line"?

Again no so either your basing your opinions on what you see written or heard from on forums. Or simply being disingenuous and picking the worst examples to provide of the 5E community. Again no

I have largely never found a "community at large" that was "Gooderer" then other communities (outside of outright shit people like say a drug dealer community).


Advertising a community as "Welcoming" is just largely self serving. I don't think 5e has any community better or worse then any other really.

Quote from: JeffB on September 29, 2020, 01:32:11 PM
Are we talking about the  same "Welcoming Community" whose leader "fired" a bunch of D&D fans?


The same "welcoming community" who disparage gamers who don't see eye to eye with their own views?


The same "welcoming community" who eat their own like Mearls, Perkins, etc.  when they "step out of line"?








No thank you.

I'll stick with the community full of asshats who don't give a shit what that  "welcoming community" thinks ;D

Those guys may have written the books for 5E; but once it made its way into other peoples' hands, they took it and did what they wanted to with it.  Those guys may hold positions at WOTC, but they don't rule over the community at large.  You can't fire me from something I already own. 

Quote from: Razor 007 on September 29, 2020, 10:52:17 PM
Those guys may have written the books for 5E; but once it made its way into other peoples' hands, they took it and did what they wanted to with it.  Those guys may hold positions at WOTC, but they don't rule over the community at large.  You can't fire me from something I already own.

Thanks. It really isn't hard to understand. God, I hate outrage porn.

Y'all crack me up.

I gave up on WOTC years ago. I don't get outraged at anything when it comes to make believe games about faeries and elves.