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David Johansen said:
Honestly, it isn't my cup of tea. I became very disillusioned with 5e by running thousands of hours of it. But I'm not a nonbinary teenager with blue hair so I'm not really the target market. The reality of the roleplaying industry since the dawn of time has been that D&D sucks, there are much better games, but nobody is playing them.
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I managed to convince my group to try Mythras, but that only worked because 1) they trust me and 2) half of them have played Runequest in the past, and enjoyed it. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to convince "less than close friends" who haven't played anything else.
 
Necrozius said:
TO each their own, but it is amazing how much D&D "feels" kind of bland to me, despite the wonder and fantasy oozing out of every pore. A forgotten ruin full of traps and undead seems less... daunting if the party are all multicolored half-angels and devils with at-will spells that replicate Xmen powers.
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The image I often use is the art of making a Nutella sandwich. If you don't apply enough spread, the taste of bland bread smothers the hazelnut. If you apply too much spread, it becomes cloying and sickening. The balanced contrast between the bread and the spread is where the magic lies.

Modern D&D's explosion of fantasy options can feel like eating Nutella straight from the jar with the largest available spoon. Everything is maximally 'fantastic', so nothing contrasts, and it all ends up feeling like a samey regret-filled sugar rush.
 
Necrozius said:
Night and day (almost literally). Everything is smooth and perfect, brightly colourful, hopeful and optimistic in 5e art. Most of heroes look confident, happy and without fear.
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The art really does matter to some people. Plenty of retroclones exist just so someone can have a fairly stadard D&D rule set, but with just the right aesthetic for that person.
 
Necrozius said:
I managed to convince my group to try Mythras, but that only worked because 1) they trust me and 2) half of them have played Runequest in the past, and enjoyed it. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to convince "less than close friends" who haven't played anything else.
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I'd start with a Call of Cthulhu one-shot to give them a taste of BRP. If they don't bounce off the system, you then start chatting with the more combat-oriented players about all cool combat options in Mythras. And if Mythras is just too crunchy for a group, OpenQuest is a great game too.
 
Baulderstone said:
It does strike me as foolish to declare that they have made the perfect edition of D&D, ending the editions wars forever.
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Ah, but they have--by mobilizing their marketing machine, social media outlets, and followers to squeeze out anyone who does not affirm the glory of the One Game. :grin:
Necrozius said:
I remember the 4e magazine ads that were all "playing RPGs in front of a computer is anti-social and LAME-OOO" and now it's all "play online! Use our online gaming platform! THAT's what we call social and hip!"

My irony meter has EXPLODED.
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Minor correction: Those were 3.5-era ads. 4th Edition was all in on the promise of digital tools and an online tabletop. Unfortunately, both the game and the VTT imploded, so they went back to the tabletop with 5E. Could history be repeating? Tough to say.
 
Ladybird said:
That's why the background system is a strength, though; rather than a big list which will always be incomplete, you're free to add your own (Either on the fly or writing your own giant list), and because they're so mechanically simple (Two skills, two proficiencies, one perk from a list of pretty minor things and even they're mostly "you can find a bed for the night and some folk in your line of work") you can't create a broken one.

The only real potential issue is with languages, but you can always curate the list for your setting (Which you should be doing anyway).
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Dang you beat me to it. I really like the 5e background system. The published backgrounds get the job done and it is trivially easy to make your own to support unique character concepts or settings.
 
Baulderstone said:
I'd start with a Call of Cthulhu one-shot to give them a taste of BRP.
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Personally, I think the best pitch for different rule systems is doing anything other than fantasy. That completely cuts out the "but if we're doing fantasy why don't we just use D&D?" angle of evasion.

While we're on the subject, is there a good stripped-down version of the BRP rules that simulate modern day settings but without all the Lovecraft stuff?
 
Shipyard Locked said:
Personally, I think the best pitch for different rule systems is doing anything other than fantasy. That completely cuts out the "but if we're doing fantasy why don't we just use D&D?" angle of evasion.

While we're on the subject, is there a good stripped-down version of the BRP rules that simulate modern day settings but without all the Lovecraft stuff?
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But D&D does fantasy so badly...
 
Dyrnwyn said:
I think it would have been interesting to take the custom background approach to its logical conclusion and do that with races as well. Basically, give people a list of options to choose from for special abilities (maybe assigning them a cost/rank to keep things balanced) and let people create their own, while still offering the sample/premade options. That way they could be tailored to meet the needs of a setting.
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So, you are suggesting WotC should re-invent the old 2E "skills and powers" books. One of them had rules for making race and such using character build points. :grin:
 
I'm out too.

I didn't realise this, but my last game of 5E was almost 2 years ago. Made the decision a couple of months ago to migrate to the Fantasy AGE... well I will when the updated version is released.

For me the key reason are the ever expanding number of PC races, variant races, subclasses, and new spells. Sure I can "curate" the lists, but with the way the updates are released, do I really want to spend my money and time constantly keeping up to things just so I know what I don't want to include in my game?

The other reason is I find the amount of magic available to PC classes is too much. Again, I can go through the list and come up with my own rules for cantrips and spell slots, but...

Nah. I would rather just find a less ambitious publisher whose business model isn't making my collection incomplete or lacking with each new release.
 
So far it just looks like a shuffling of the deckchairs - does it really matter if that +2 to Dex comes from a race, background, feat or class? Not really. Maybe it will encourage some players to chose a race for rp reasons and not just because it gets them a high score in certain stat. It won't change much once the dice start rolling.

It does strike me that this is the first new edition in the "actual play" era. I wanted to speculate on how the rules could be changed to better accomodate the scripted Critical Role type play, but I drew a blank. Maybe thats not even possible. Or maybe it would just be in the advice written in the new DMG. Would they even want to lean into that? Who knows.

Looking forward to seeing if they can fix one of the problems I have with 3.5 and 5th which is the amount of time combat suddenly starts to take when you go up the levels. At low level combat is something that happens 2 or 3 times a session between all the rp. By L10 combat is pretty much the only thing we get to do that evening. And combat in 5th can be dull, dull and dull.
 
StonesThree said:
Looking forward to seeing if they can fix one of the problems I have with 3.5 and 5th which is the amount of time combat suddenly starts to take when you go up the levels. At low level combat is something that happens 2 or 3 times a session between all the rp. By L10 combat is pretty much the only thing we get to do that evening. And combat in 5th can be dull, dull and dull.
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Given that they are trying to be fully backwards compatible, I don't think this is getting fixed.

I'm among several on this board who like D&D but have no interest in high level play. I've set campaigns where 11th is the max level in existence and slowed advancement a tad so it takes a while to get there.
 
Shipyard Locked said:
Personally, I think the best pitch for different rule systems is doing anything other than fantasy. That completely cuts out the "but if we're doing fantasy why don't we just use D&D?" angle of evasion.

While we're on the subject, is there a good stripped-down version of the BRP rules that simulate modern day settings but without all the Lovecraft stuff?
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That's a good point. The one-shot element is important too. If you decide to run a Call of Cthulhu one-shot for Halloween, your loyal D&D players will be a lot more likely to give it a shot than if you are proposing setting D&D aside for a year or so to run Masks of Nyarlathotep.
Stan said:
Given that they are trying to be fully backwards compatible, I don't think this is getting fixed.

I'm among several on this board who like D&D but have no interest in high level play. I've set campaigns where 11th is the max level in existence and slowed advancement a tad so it takes a while to get there.
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D&D was originally designed for 10 levels, and the additional levels were created to meet market demand. That's why the best and easiest solution to the problems of high-level D&D is not to play high-level D&D.
 
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StonesThree said:
So far it just looks like a shuffling of the deckchairs - does it really matter if that +2 to Dex comes from a race, background, feat or class? Not really. Maybe it will encourage some players to chose a race for rp reasons and not just because it gets them a high score in certain stat.
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Agreed, if they can express the physiological or magical differences of each species in another way (which it appears they're trying to do).
 
Necrozius said:
Agreed, if they can express the physiological or magical differences of each species in another way (which it appears they're trying to do).
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D&D has the issue that it needs to be somewhat generic in its setting, so it's much easier to just view races as package of bonuses and abilities, devoid of any kind of culture. You see that a lot less in a game like Warhammer on Runequest where your choice of race is going to have a real impact in the setting.

Obviously, a GM can deal with this by giving their own setting cultural specificity and interesting relationships between those cultures. That's a lot easier for the grizzled veterans here than for someone using 5E to run their first ever game though.
 
Monero said:
5E would probably work pretty well for an OSR type game. It's not that "modern" imo and the rules are dead simple which is inline with some of the design goals for OSR.

I'd love to have an old school 5E game with awesome adult targeted artwork and a return to appealing to the core D&D audience that is responsible for getting us all here.
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Adventures in Middle-Earth handled it great.

My biggest gripe with current 5e (with the caveat that I am not a "true" grognard, as my previous favorite version was 2e, and I've been told since the day I first logged onto the internet that 2e was not, in fact, "real" D&D) is that *some* of the background features were too powerful. Namely, I'm running a hexcrawl with a Paladin who has the Outlander background and, due to his background, he can't get lost anywhere he's seen a map to or been to, and he can gather food for 5 people every day without risk or challenge.

Completely hamstrung the exploration/survival part of it right off the bat.

On the other hand, my 5e games run a pretty brutal less than 50% survival rate, so that's fun.

Zero chance I drop NPC critical hits, though, even though I have comparatively nerfed them vs PC critical hits (NPCs get the normal double damage dice, I use critical hit charts with nastier effects for the PC critical hits).

Stan said:
I wonder if ardlings came about because Aasimar sounds like ass? If so, ardling isn't a great sound.
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Shipyard Locked said:
I'm also not so sure about combining the "Ugh, here you go furries, whatever" race option with the angel-cosplayer race option.
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I had the same frustration about Aasimar, but I do 100% think this is catering to the furry/cosplay crowd on purpose. A cosplay Aasimar isn't nearly as eye catching as a cosplay Tiefling...but with the Ardlings and someone having to put on on, say, an angelic lion get-up at a convention? Gold.

As long as I'm running 5e, and I genuinely don't know how long that will be - I like it, but it's not my favorite RPG - I can be happy with buying the 5e books that have enough rules and stats I like, and using the lore, presentation, and aesthetics of older editions I like better.

Odds are really good that once my current campaign ends, I get my fantasy itch from the Savage Worlds Pathfinder releases anyway (not running in Golarion, but running TSR material with Savage Worlds).
 
Necrozius said:
Agreed, if they can express the physiological or magical differences of each species in another way (which it appears they're trying to do).
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A lot of that has to come at the table, too.

My current game started with a Bugbear Paladin, a Minotaur Fighter, and a Human Ranger. Minotaur Fighter died and was replaced with a Fairy Druid.

Now, I know this makes us Terrible People Who Play The Game Wrong, but it mattered when a hulking bugbear and a minotaur came walking up to a wilderness town. Didn't mean they couldn't win the townsfolk over (the minotaur is buried as a hero at just such a town) but they did have to overcome suspicion and prejudice and the like.

(On the other hand, the same bugbear ran rampant through a keep overtaken by goblins recently because several didn't realize whose side he was on until it was too late, because "bugbear".)
 
Stan said:
Given that they are trying to be fully backwards compatible, I don't think this is getting fixed.

I'm among several on this board who like D&D but have no interest in high level play. I've set campaigns where 11th is the max level in existence and slowed advancement a tad so it takes a while to get there.
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My first two campaigns were canned: Tyranny of Dragons and Curse of Strahd. I ran those with milestone XP and went "great!" with the nagging thought in the back of my head that obviously, rapid advancement like that would break the world, but I knew we were moving on to other games/worlds/etc after those were done, so whatever.

With my current hexcrawl, I went back to XP and training times and, while advancement is still faster than it was when I was running 2e, it is also paced a lot more to my liking.
 
Raleel said:
Have you heard the word of our lord and savior Mythras? The authors have been quoted as saying we are quite happy with the ruleset and we don’t see a need for a new edition for a long time. Indeed, when they changed the name, they hardly even changed the text!
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And all it took to reach this point was this...
1660923882161.png
 
finarvyn said:
So, you are suggesting WotC should re-invent the old 2E "skills and powers" books. One of them had rules for making race and such using character build points. :grin:
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Whats old is new again. Flip some math & words, contract some cheap budget fluff text, recycle, put everything else in art & advertising. Even the 4e online tools are back for 5e.

Personally tho, its like D&D has become a cheap McDonalds burger thing or cheap cheese pizza. Lowest common denominaor thats not chosen because its any good but because its easy, common, and you can get a group to agree to it.

These days if a game doesn't have a good strong identity & theme backed by good mechanics, or lets me play a cocaine wizard in power armor riding a cyber-ninja T-Rex with machine gun arms... I just don't really care any more. D&D isn't fun because of the game any more, its fun because of the group of friends... and we could do that with any board/card game.
 
Shipyard Locked said:
Personally, I think the best pitch for different rule systems is doing anything other than fantasy. That completely cuts out the "but if we're doing fantasy why don't we just use D&D?" angle of evasion.

While we're on the subject, is there a good stripped-down version of the BRP rules that simulate modern day settings but without all the Lovecraft stuff?
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How modern do you want? Amazing Adventures for BRP is 1930s but could be pushed to the 1950s with little effort. Conspiracy Theory, the Quickstart for Revolution d100, provides rules and a modern day adventure (albeit with weird reincarnation).
 
Telok said:
These days if a game doesn't have a good strong identity & theme backed by good mechanics, or lets me play a cocaine wizard in power armor riding a cyber-ninja T-Rex with machine gun arms... I just don't really care any more. D&D isn't fun because of the game any more, its fun because of the group of friends... and we could do that with any board/card game.
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Cocaine Wizards of the Cretaceous Apocalypse sounds like a game with legs
[h3][/h3]
 
David Johansen said:
Honestly, it isn't my cup of tea. I became very disillusioned with 5e by running thousands of hours of it. But I'm not a nonbinary teenager with blue hair so I'm not really the target market. The reality of the roleplaying industry since the dawn of time has been that D&D sucks, there are much better games, but nobody is playing them.
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I can't really argue with this. I am not the target audience either. But that's ok. Jeremy Crawford isn't coming for our player's handbooks and dice :smile:

My feeling is that many of us were in the group of weirdos who played RPGs and the NEW group of weirdos is getting their turn, and it'll help them all feel more normal. The focus of the systems will change, what it's trying to convey will change, and so on. Think about all the crunchy systems that were great for math and science nerds. Then we get the lighter and socially driven stuff that got the theater nerds in.

This new band is educated on Critical Role and they see a place that is pretty happy for them. WOTC goes there because they are younger, and frankly, a larger demographic than us late boomers and GenXers. They deal with different social issues that are *right up front* for them. Their sources of inspiration are from when we all were already adults, or close to it.

It's going to be uncomfortable for us. I already see that looking at the media that is being offered and consumed. On the other hand, it's sort of beautiful, because it's entirely new for many of us. It's very much like going through that transdimensional portal and looking at the GM and going WTF is going on here.
 
Raleel said:
I can't really argue with this. I am not the target audience either. But that's ok. Jeremy Crawford isn't coming for our player's handbooks and dice :smile:

My feeling is that many of us were in the group of weirdos who played RPGs and the NEW group of weirdos is getting their turn, and it'll help them all feel more normal. The focus of the systems will change, what it's trying to convey will change, and so on. Think about all the crunchy systems that were great for math and science nerds. Then we get the lighter and socially driven stuff that got the theater nerds in.

This new band is educated on Critical Role and they see a place that is pretty happy for them. WOTC goes there because they are younger, and frankly, a larger demographic than us late boomers and GenXers. They deal with different social issues that are *right up front* for them. Their sources of inspiration are from when we all were already adults, or close to it.

It's going to be uncomfortable for us. I already see that looking at the media that is being offered and consumed. On the other hand, it's sort of beautiful, because it's entirely new for many of us. It's very much like going through that transdimensional portal and looking at the GM and going WTF is going on here.
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I've said this before, but I'm glad to see lots of new RPG products that don't appeal to me at all. It's a sign that younger generations are legitimately engaging with RPGs and this isn't just some retro '80s fad.

And it's not like there aren't any young people with similar taste. My 11-year-old nephew just informed me that he wants a copy of Dungeon Crawl Classics for Christmas because it is the best version of D&D and he wants to run it for his friends. He also borrowed my copy so he doesn't have to wait to run it.
 
It's a beautiful thing to see all these new faces in the RPG community enjoying the new stuff like One D&D.

We Gen-Xers will always our own stuff, like the greatest RPG of all-time: DC Heroes.
 
Half-baked idea. I have to paraphrase, but a long time ago, I heard someone define pop music as "music made for people under 20".

D&D has become the pop music of RPGs. It reinvents itself to better matchn the tastes its more recent group of fans, which by that idea alone is going to alienate it's older fans, who eventually move on and attach themselves to newer games, or if they're still D&D fans hold on to the "oldies".

It's kinda why I'm pretty chill about it. I still got my oldies.
 
Telok said:
D&D isn't fun because of the game any more, its fun because of the group of friends... and we could do that with any board/card game.
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That sums up my feelings on RPGs in general and has for years.

People > Snacks (and that one took a hit when we moved online) > Setting > System
 
My daughter lightly complained the other day in the car about me playing my usual 60s/70s/80s playlists (which she actually likes) and I said I really wasn't interested in new music even if its good. It's partially because I'm set in my ways and partially because I got what I need already. I think the best pop music was from that era so why bother with anything else? I'm a little more loose with RPGs but most of my favorites are still old games.
 
Endless Flight said:
My daughter lightly complained the other day in the car about me playing my usual 60s/70s/80s playlists (which she actually likes) and I said I really wasn't interested in new music even if its good. It's partially because I'm set in my ways and partially because I got what I need already. I think the best pop music was from that era so why bother with anything else?
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I'm...legitimately unsure how serious or sarcastic this wise, but I'll offer my honest response:

Every one of my favorite things, in this case, tabletop RPGs, became so because I tried them once.

But if I don't like it, that's cool, because I still got all my old shit.
 
Endless Flight said:
My daughter lightly complained the other day in the car about me playing my usual 60s/70s/80s playlists (which she actually likes) and I said I really wasn't interested in new music even if its good. It's partially because I'm set in my ways and partially because I got what I need already. I think the best pop music was from that era so why bother with anything else? I'm a little more loose with RPGs but most of my favorites are still old games.
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i listen to the local high school station and outsource my new music exploration. 90% of it is shit, but there are good nuggets in there. they get added, their musical distinctiveness added to my own.
 
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