/tg/ - Traditional Games

More than anything it's that so many people are sick of generic high fantasy. Another part is later game disparity between casters and martial characters in earlier editions (not sure if that's still a thing or not). On top of that they keep simplifying the system in a bad way, taking away good complexity and at times adding bad complexity.

If you were talking about 4th edition i would agree 100% about the simplifying the system in a bad way thing

i only played 3 sessions because the DM was bad (he is one of my players now, its much better this way) and the system was fucking horrible

But so far i cant find a big flaw on 5e, seems like they managed to pick all the good parts from previous systems, the character creation is indeed less complex, but it has as much depth as early 3.5

>>225520

5e is actually pretty good in my opinion, but D&D as a whole is one of those sacred cows that refuses to die.

People assume it's the only game they can ever play and when they get used to it, they refuse to learn anything else. Amateur game devs assume that they can "fix" the game by making a shittier d20 game or by tagging on a few dozen houserules. then you've got the other idiots who think D&D is the only set of rules for any setting. And you've got min-maxers, theorycrafting spergs, THAT GUYs, all that shit with the 9-point alignment system.. And this doesn't even get into the fuckery of the campaign settings and pre-written adventures.

There's just a lot of trash floating around the idea of D&D… But it's really not a bad game when you've got a good group.

>>225526

i dont even ask for my player alignments, only their backstories, that shit is only relevant for me when something a paladin's divine sense would detect pops up

i also write my own campaign, and im recently experimenting with player agency, i let my players borrow my godly DM power in some situations and adapt whatever they say is happening into the game, i feel this is much more fun than running a pre-made campaign

i also adapt the game "difficulty" so my players dont have to worry about min-maxing or party balance

i do insert some houserules tho, but nothing excessive

>>225522

>But so far i cant find a big flaw on 5e, seems like they managed to pick all the good parts from previous systems

The whole +2 every 4 levels and races that give no penalties, coupled with stats capping at 20, pisses me off. It's a heavy-handed way of trying to force you to not just min max one skill. They could have AT LEAST made it +1 to two different attributes.That wouldve forced you to spread out some more. It also completely destroys half the purpose of the score / modifier system, why even have it? There's not stat drain anymore anyways. A +2 to an ability is just a +1 bonus to the bonus.

Here's what they got right with 5e:

> bounded accuracy

> proficiency uniting saves and base attack

> feats are more balanced, kind of

I don't hate 5e, it's actually pretty good, btu the fact that they fucked off on making more sourcebooks because "well we want to avoid splatbloat" (read: we're too fucking lazy to create balanced content, even monster manuals, so YOU homebrew it you lazy wanker. But buy our published adventures).

They made some good feats (bonuses to attributes from feats is gay as fuck but I can live with it) and the option is nice but there are no fucking feats worth taking.

Oh yeah and monster stat block is nice. And I believe damage is lower. The level 20 stat cap is fucking gay as well but I can live with it. I guess we live in the age of casuals, where people don't even believe that you made it to level 32 RAW.

Anyway, 5e has a thousandth the content of 3.5 and no fun epic level hijinx. Is it still fun? Yeah. Is it still good? Yeah. Is it better than 3.5? Not really. It's better than Pathfinder though, and marginally beats out 4e, if only because (1) too many powers in 4e that you ended up with, I'd have preferred upgrades to ones you already have and never having more than 4 or 5 total, except for wizards spells and (2) 4e "wasn't D&D" when you compare it to the other editions, it was really different in feel. Plus some other shit.

Overall 5e is good, 3.5 is good, 4e is ok, AD&D is okay, and Fantasy Craft is a load of steaming shit.

>>225526

Alignment is stupid shit. I've had more gay-ass arguments about "wah he wouldnt do that he's CG" than I can count on my ass hairs.

They. Are. Not. Realistic. Human. Motivations.

They do not belong in RPGs.

End of story. Period.

.

>>225520

Not much. I didn't like 4th ed, but I've played every edition and ran most of them. Some people are angry that it remains popular, and some will feel that is taking popularity directly away from a game they prefer. 5th ed really has me happy though, closer to the simpler times of 2nd ed, and so far avoiding rules overload of other editions (even 2nd ed got fucking retarded after a while with all the guides and complete handbooks).

There is a D&D general thread though, I assumed it was still around. D&D is still the game where I'll see the most actual first hand stories of playing the game, a lot of threads on here about other games seem to be populated by people who liked the LOOK of a game but haven't really played it much if at all. I'm running a 5th ed game and playing in another one myself.

>>225544

100% agree with this anon. Thankfully, they dialed that shit out of the rules in 5e and made alignment just flavor. I can live with that.

>>225555

>>225544

I honestly don't hate alignments, but with the new batch of players I just introduced to D&D, I just never mentioned alignment. The whole new pantheon I got for my world is overall neutral as well. I have no paladins in the group, but I would just hold them accountable to their oath mostly anyway.

>>225544

Sick triple dubs confirm.

But just in case the point wasn't clear enough, look at any one of those alignment charts where people try to put other fictional characters on the 9-point grid and they are almost never right, because even though the 9-point system is decades old, it's one of the most poorly understood subsystems.

>>225555

Great quads, and also one of the nice points about 5e. There's little to no emphasis on player alignment. Monsters mostly, but that's because the Planes, Gods, and certain spells are all default assumptions in most campaigns, which is why there are on every monster stat block.

My main problem with D&D is pretty specific and only about half its fault: I like doing magic but I HAAAATE spells per day. And sure, it has magic or magic-ish options that operate under other methods, but none of them are core book stuff. Which leads to the other half of the problem: I personally can't seem to find DMs that want to run anything outside the core books. Those factors make for a bad combination.

So personally, mostly I just want magic systems/classes other than spells per day in the core books and I'd be a much happier camper.

> 5e

Hipster cuck.

5ggots please go.

>>225520

Nothing wrong with 5e, it's a fun game.

D&D is terrible because it's casual-tier, and because people are too scared, lazy, or whatever to learn a good system.

D&D makes the people that want a realistic or simmy game cry, it bores the shit out of people looking for a fun gamey-game, and it doesn't fit whatever the fuck it is that the freeforming indie storygame faggots like.

D&D is too middle of the road, and seeing people play D&D is like finding out one of your friends read the first page of a book you really wanted to share with them, and they liked that first page, so they just kept reading it over and over again.

Come on dude, turn the page. It gets even better.

>generic high fantasy

>stupid concepts like AC

>alignments

>d20

>balance

>very gamey

>often leaning towards rollplay rather than roleplay

And a few more things. I'd play D&D but wouldn't bother with the effort of GMing it, would much rather play/GM Runequest.

>>225660

The Monster Manual is pretty fucking great this time around, but I'm definitely feeling the lack of content and my players aren't even level 5 yet.

D&D has a track record of being terribly balanced.

I don't have any experience with AD&D, but AD&D 2nd edition is a weird and archaic mess full of arbitrary limitations (Every race has classes they're not allowed to take, the ones they are allowed to have have level caps unless you're human, but if you're human you get no racial bonuses whatsoever), save or die conditions and fuck-you enemies. 3rd edition is a broken, imbalanced monstrosity on every level with so much content bloat that someone who knows and has access to all the source books is on a completely different level from someone without the time or understanding to use them. It values all feats equally, putting gaining a few hit points or skill points on the same supposed level as learning to enchant weapons and create magical items. Skill points grow out of proportion at high level, but get invalidated entirely with just a few simple spells like flight, invisibility and knock. Meanwhile, 4th edition dealt with the clusterfuck of 3rd by tossing out virtually all of the non-combat rules and presenting a uniform system that keeps everything tightly balanced in a straight up fight. It's imbalanced in that you're only getting half of a complete game due to its overwhelming focus on dungeon crawling.

I don't know what 5th edition is like, I haven't had a decent chance to play it.

The thing about D&D overall though is that it has failed to keep up with RPG innovations. For example, you don't get to take any active role in your own defence. You put on some armour, you get your AC nice and high, and that's about it. When you're attacked, someone rolls to hit, you take the hit, end of story. At best, you might get to roll a will save to negate or a reflex save for half damage. That's boring. In other systems (Like the Warhammer 40,000 RPGs or Ironclaw), you get to be more active, you get the chance to defend yourself, you could counter, parry or dodge. This makes you feel more involved in the action.

There's no encouragement to go outside of the rules and do something cool or daring in a battle either. Definitely nothing like Exalted's stunt system. It's a grid-based combat engine where it is drilled into you that you get a move action and an attack action, and these two actions shall make up your turn. If you want a more narrative approach, you have to make it up yourselves, the game will not help you.

> it was very fun

Yes, yes it was. That's the magic of RPGs. It doesn't even matter what you're playing, get together with your friends, roll some dice, find yourselves in some wacky adventures, you'll have a great time. Don't worry too much about whether D&D is good or bad, play it if that's what's running, just be willing to try something else too.

>>225520

It's a bad game.

Everything that DnD does, some other system does it better. Everything, no exceptions.

But DnD does it all in the realm of generic fantasy (something that few other systems do so widely, but those that do still tend to do better), and you can have fun with it provided you have a good GM.

But the GM must be good, because the game is bad and he will be fighting it in other to run a good game.

There are a LOT of MUCH better games out there. And a lot of GMs brewing the flaws out and the flavor in the sucky system.

>>225675

And ah, of course, bad games can be lots of fun.

And good games can be bad and unfun, too.

GM, group, mood and situation have much more influence on your fun than the system. But then, if you have a good group and a good game…

>>225675

There are games that do certain things better than D&D, but no game that does everything D&D does, but better. At least not objectively.

It's give and take, and most people accept accessibility, ease of play, and the gamey hack-and-slash focus of D&D over most other games for good reason.

>>225555

I didn't mind them in the rules. I liked stuff like "detect good" or requiring you to be evil to open the book of vile darkness. But it was the whole thoughtpolice crap where "well if you're NE you wouldn't do something LAWFUL" and similar dumb-ass shit.

>>225641

> it bores the shit out of people looking for a fun gamey-game

What should they play instead? FantasyCraft?

>>225684

>but no game that does everything D&D does, but better.

I'm not sure I agree. But I'm also not sure that I disagree, too.

What I was thinking about when writing that was Runequest. Doesn't Runequest do full DnD scope stuff but in a more mechanically satisfying way?

> and most people accept accessibility

I don't know. Sometimes I just think is sheer marketing. People associate rpg with DnD, and DnD with rpg.

So whenever you say you're playing an rpg to a colleague, the first thing they ask is if you're playing an elf.

And if you're not into /tg/ already and wants to get inna rpgs, the first thing you buy and play is DnD, because… That's rpgs, right?

I personally loved d&d 3.5. I can't give my experiences on it afterwards, as I didn't like 4e, and stopped paying attention to wizards when pathfinder came out.

The problem is that, D&d is the only one that provided for me a very particular flavor of colorful high level, filled with miriad of items.

I loved dming at high levels, I loved the players surprising me with creative uses of the rigid stuff they were given.

I loved the excessive quantity of power they could achieve in places where sometimes, other systems might feel scared. (As if teleport and divination spells were something that could destroy the story other than a DM tool, provided that he builds the stories knowing what is possible on the universe the game runs)

However, with how much love I have for d&d, it's settings, it's possibilities, and it's particular flavor of high level. The game is frustrating for a dm.

At higher levels, while the ammount of work the player has to put on his character is acceptable, for the dm to create original encounters he has to fight with a system that either produces unoriginal monsters, or requires him to fight a lot with numbers. Creating monsters on the fly is a hit and miss, and probably means that you will fuck it up and will need to disguise and lie about how the combat went.

Of course, this is solved playing the game at lower level, like most dms do. But then you wouldn't be able to actually experience how d&d looks at high level, you will never reach it. Because dm's will never practice how to actually deal with a party that can teleport everywhere and will put excuses to do a reset or play another thing. And frankly, if you're going to do low level sword and sorcery all the time, you might as well just look at some other system.

The tragedy of d&d during 3.5, is that it managed to put a real variety of power levels all on the same system. To some degree of success, you could put in the same scene, a commoner, a zombie, a vampire, a half demon, a dragon and even a deity. And there were rules that clearly represented them and defined them in a symetric way.

Yet, it's own elegant advantage, is its own undoing.

The problem is that it's simply not elegant.

The player sees monsters that are forced to play under the same rules than him, putting a façade of fairness and reliance.

But from behind the master screen, you might probably have a disheveled pitiful individual that either has been writing the that is concluding in one turn during five hours the day before, or you have someone making shit as he goes.

In the end, the premise doesn't work, because d&d doesn't think on the master sanity. It's unhealthy.

When it comes to high fantasy I replaced d&d entirely with Dungeon World once I found out about it.

My biggest problems with d&d were combat taking way too long and the huge power difference between classes.

But everyone knows about those.

>>225522

Oh, I actually misread it as 5th session of 4th edition.

>>225541

You complain about the stat caps, but you say bounded accuracy is good. Is there some way to have one without the other?

>>225874

Yes.

1) Have the fucking array as normal

2) Bounded accuracy doesn't mean "oh shit if a bonus is >+10 the system breaks down", that's not an issue in d20. But removing extraneous bonuses is fine.

3) Do not have a stat increase as +2, have it as +1 to two different stats

4) Go back to +2 / -2 for stats, all it does is raise the bar and make it so no race has a weakness. It's fucking stupid for all orcs to be just as good of wizards as halflings even when orcs are supposed to be retarded.

5) ???

6) Profit, though Wizards gets that whether they make a decent system or not.

>>225761

> unironically playing a shitty hijack of Apocalypse World in a HP-bloat system where it is barely possible to die, made by two hacks who couldn't produce an orignial game to save their lives, so they failed to understand the mechanics of another game and made an RPG rip-off that basically spit in its face.

Apocalypse World is good for reasons that Dungeon World devs didn't understand for shit. They then produced a shitty mishmash of a game that is only loved by newfags who have played only 3.5 and 5e, maybe Pathfinder, and think that those and Dungeon World are the only options out there.

>>226098

Not that anon, but what would you recommend instead of DW?

>>226100

FantasyCraft

13th Age

Numenera

Apocalypse World itself

D&D 5e even though I think 5e is crap.

Warrior Rogue and Mage

Castles and Crusades

Microlite d20

>>226098

>>226127

The fuck are you talking about man, you rail on these guys for making a derivative of apocalypse world and then reccomend a bunch of games derived from dnd?

How is basing a game on something else a bad thing?

Also, I think they did a great job with dungeon world. Sure it's not perfect, but what game is really? It's a ton of fun to play if you want a game that doesn't bog you down with rules.

Opinions.

>>226127

>13th Age

>Microlite20

Meine Person mit dunkler Haut

>>226237

That anon clearly complained that Dungeon World is a shitty mishmash born from copying without understanding what makes the original material good. He never claimed that all derivatives are bad.

5e's biggest problem from my perspective is encounter difficulty calculation and the 'adventuring day'. I don't want to run 6 encounters worth of chaff in a day just so the party can use its resources and be challenged without 'risky' big encounters that have a chance to wreck everyone or be trivialized by one or two spells.

I'll probably use the system for my next campaign but write new classes designed around a different resource burn rate. Otherwise game is fine.

>>226289

Why write new classes when you can just do what literally any sane person would do and the book advises: Use the tools given to you as Dungeon Master and make encounters more difficult.

>>226290

We're using a different setting in the next campaign and I'm making a bunch of other changes, but the underlying ideas of the system are pretty good so I'm going to use it as a base for my own stuff.

The problem with encounter math is not about being able to adjust difficulty, it's about the assumptions built into the system that you'll be throwing X amount of encounters at them in an 'adventuring day' which drains their resources over the course of the day. If you don't like the idea of throwing unnecessary amounts of combat at the party, trying instead to have a session where the bulk of it is productive roleplay and exploration, you're shit outta luck.

Better hope nobody's playing a warlock because if you don't run at least 3 encounters with short rests between them on any day where you're running combat, they're gonna run out of spell slots immediately and have to sit back casting Eldritch Blast all day. A 5th-level wizard has enough spell slots to happily blast powerful spells on every round of an entire ultra-deadly encounter, but if you send him through 6 'medium' encounters he's going to have to pace himself.

Building the resource system around varying rates of recharge is cute and gives some nice texture to the differences between the classes, but it also hard-codes an assumption into the game about how many fights you get into and how often they should happen, and that's crap.

Action economy makes a big difference too. A single boss monster is almost always going to get completely overwhelmed simply because a party of 4 PCs has more actions per round. There is a reasonably elegant homebrew solution for this called Paragon Monsters but it's a glaring problem with the RAW system. And then you see that the encounter calculation rules put big multipliers on encounters with a lot of bodies, and wonder what the fuck they were thinking when they decided that the various 'conjure X' spells were balanced between summoning 8 small things or 1 big thing. Action economy along makes it a way better choice almost 100% of the time to summon a cuntload of snakes or pigs or something to overwhelm the enemy rather than a single bear.

My groups have found a happy medium where we'll only run the resource-draining thing when the party is going into a 'serious dungeon' or approaching a boss fight, so it's not a huge deal, but it would be nice if there was a simple way to put a reasonably challenging encounter into the adventure without having to place 3 resource-draining encounters beforehand.

>>226292

> it's about the assumptions built into the system that you'll be throwing X amount of encounters at them in an 'adventuring day' which drains their resources over the course of the day.

This is a big thing that keeps me from liking systems that have a heavy focus on concepts like endurance, exhaustion and categorized use limits. It ropes the GM into piloting the game in a very specific way and it encourages the players to engage in "pansy gameplay" by burning their stronger stuff and then returning later on.

Resource pools might have more number-heavy management but, tracking aside, they're ultimately a lot easier to work with from both a player and a GM perspective.

Someone else pointed out accessibility in the thread and I think that's what the intent is, the problem is that it's accessibility through control rather than through simplification. It's very frustrating if you're someone who doesn't want to use a preset adventuring path. It's not a good system for veterans, or really anyone who isn't a complete beginner.

>>225660

>>225660

curse of strahd is great, running it with a player who ran the original ravenloft module and he loves it.

>>227100

Are you running it for just that one player? If so, I'd be interested to hear how you made it work!

>>227188

Nah, 8 man group with a high elf wizard who throws catapults around like his name was zeppeli, an aasimar exavier (ravenloft 1 guy) and a few other ecclectic types. and this one fucking guy who i swear to god is the most annoying and non roleplayer ever.

>>227189

its out now, i got it day 1 and bought the last thing in the shop along with a map.

>>226462

No, it's there as an option. I want 1 to both to be the ONLY option to pretend people just maxing out a stat and slamming their head on the stat ceiling.

>>226127

Eh, sorry. I consider those all garbage compared to DW. They just do nothing for me compared to it. Yeah yeah whatever shit taste. I'd hoped you'd point me in the direction of something I hadn't seen before.

>>227204

Christ that sounds great.