We won! (OGL)

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Who's taking the numbers that Wizards toss at us seriously?

First of all, they cite things that they didn't even ask me in their survey. Secondly Wizards told that upwards of 16k people answered their survey. Black Flag told me they got 21k answers to the call. How's that possible?! How could the elephant in the room get less people to answer to their outburst than a small fringe operator get? Thirdly, they told that the survey would be up for two weeks, and after only a few days later they announce results...
 
Whatever the numbers were, they clearly led to an utter capitulation by upper mgmt. to staunch the bleeding. So sure, I don’t see much reason to think WotC cooked the books here. It’s not as though the stats they made public did much to burnish their image, it completely discredited their bungled strategy to kill the OGL and fuck over 3rd party creators.
 
let’s keep our cool, eh? No need to get worked up at all here.
 
TJS said:
The most common complaints over the years have been these:

- CR and encounter design math doesn't work.
- Monsters are boring/ therefore combat is boring (especially I think for the DM - these complaints tend to come more from DMs than players).
- Rest schedule doesn't work very well.
- Lack of options for customising characters (this is probably the biggest player complaint).
- The game is too easy (which needs some digging into because in theory the GM can always up the dificulty, but nevertheless that's the complaint.)

There's more of course, but those seem to the most universal one. Other complaints such as too much magic in general are common but probably have just as many players who would disagree that it is a problem and would actively be opposed to any attempt to address it.
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seems like ditching the first one would generally solve the last one.

But in general I wonder if there wouldn't be an appeal to modern D&D having a "Hard Mode" option, something to challenge folks that want that, much like video games have difficulty settings?

I've always found D&D's monsters incredibly boring. In the past I called it the "Star Trek" approach to monster design based on the old criticism of Star Trek aliens all just being people with different prosthetics. D&D took most f it's monsters from folklore/mythology, and then removed everything interesting & quirky about them, turning them into stat blocks with no personality or cultural identity.

I don't know what character customization options are expected these days, I assume that's expectations coming from mmo's and crpgs. I think most of the hobby doesn't want to go back to 3rd edition "character builds", but I also think avoiding that is easy: just don't have "trap options".
 
I think avoiding "builds" is easy, all it takes is avoiding having to plan 8 steps ahead just to make sure you qualify for something that is core to your character idea. Like, a lot of 3.x prestige classes required such specific things that qualifying for them at minimum level almost always required multiclassing and taking specific feats at specific times. The whole constant chaining of needing this for that for this for that, etc. was what made it feel like you needed to plan ahead.

On the other hand, games like D20 Modern or Star Wars Saga, which had MORE choices than even 3.x as you had at least one choice every single level, never felt as build oriented.
 
TristramEvans said:
But in general I wonder if there wouldn't be an appeal to modern D&D having a "Hard Mode" option, something to challenge folks that want that, much like video games have difficulty settings?
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Well there are "hard mode" options mentioned in the 5e DMG. I guess most people either are unaware of them or don't use them.

I find that removing "inspiration" and not allowing "long rests" to replenish all hit points (unless the characters are in a safe haven, e.g., a town inn) helps a lot.
 
Akrasia said:
Well there are "hard mode" options mentioned in the 5e DMG. I guess most people either are unaware of them or don't use them.
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From comments I see n social media I'm guessing a lot f people are unaware. Perhaps they should be more explicit, and made a player choice instead of just a DM option.
 
TristramEvans said:
seems like ditching the first one would generally solve the last one.

But in general I wonder if there wouldn't be an appeal to modern D&D having a "Hard Mode" option, something to challenge folks that want that, much like video games have difficulty settings?

I've always found D&D's monsters incredibly boring. In the past I called it the "Star Trek" approach to monster design based on the old criticism of Star Trek aliens all just being people with different prosthetics. D&D took most f it's monsters from folklore/mythology, and then removed everything interesting & quirky about them, turning them into stat blocks with no personality or cultural identity.

I don't know what character customization options are expected these days, I assume that's expectations coming from mmo's and crpgs. I think most of the hobby doesn't want to go back to 3rd edition "character builds", but I also think avoiding that is easy: just don't have "trap options".
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I might dig into it a little more later if I have time, but it's not really the CR that is the problem - especially as people increasingly recognise it doesn't work anyway.

It's really the monster design that is the issue. The game doesn't scale in a satisfying way. I've seen GMs completely blow the CR budget out of the water in order to make the game more challenging, but in experience they encounter the following issues:

- As the monsers become overlevelled at a certain point the game becomes very swingy and arbitrary, while this may be fine if the PCs are encountering a monster they should have run away from, it's an issue for those GMs who want the encounter to be some kind of big boss fight for that more common style of GMing.
- As well as becoming swingy, there's little PCs can do differently in response to an overlevelled group of monsters. There aren't that many tactical levers that players can pull in order to deal with overlevelled monsters - so even if the Players win a fight they shouldn't have won, it's often down to luck.
- Combat of this kind becomes incredibly time consuming. A really hard fight in 5e may take as long as a 4e fight. 5e combat is fast if the CR guidelines are followed, but quickly slows down if you go beyond them.

So really when GMs and Players say the game is too easy what they tend to mean is that they don't feel there is any way to make combat feel 'challenging' in a way that is actually satisfying and makes player victory feel rewarding.

There's also I think a little understood converse issue in that the kind of common fights that are just there, supposedly to drain resources often feel pointless (basically, they need more risk that something could go wrong to bring in enough tension for them not to feel pointless - although an additional factor here is that 5e is designed for location based dungeon crawling and most groups don't actually use it for that.)
 
Akrasia said:
Well there are "hard mode" options mentioned in the 5e DMG. I guess most people either are unaware of them or don't use them.

I find that removing "inspiration" and not allowing "long rests" to replenish all hit points (unless the characters are in a safe haven, e.g., a town inn) helps a lot.
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I’m told everyone forgets to use inspiration anyhow
 
If you get beaten to a pulp during an adventure, it should take longer than an eight hour rest to recover all your hit points. It should be a set amount every day by level adjusted by your class and your Con penalty or bonus.
 
Eeehh. Time is an illusion anyway. Downtime doubly so.
 
Endless Flight said:
If you get beaten to a pulp during an adventure, it should take longer than an eight hour rest to recover all your hit points. It should be a set amount every day by level adjusted by your class and your Con penalty or bonus.
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As others have mentioned there are options for alternate rest rules in the 5e DMG to make recovery slower. I believe one of them is that the 1 hr rest recovery takes a day and full rest a week.

When the optional rules are pointed out most dismiss them, the game has to arrive fine-tuned exactly to their specific tastes you see, providing options means the game is 'broken.'
 
Voros said:
As others have mentioned there are options for alternate rest rules in the 5e DMG to make recovery slower. I believe one of them is that the 1 hr rest recovery takes a day and full rest a week.

When the optional rules are pointed out most dismiss them, the game has to arrive fine-tuned exactly to their specific tastes you see, providing options means the game is 'broken.'
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I think options are good. I just think the default is too superhero but that’s fine.
 
TJS said:
I might dig into it a little more later if I have time, but it's not really the CR that is the problem - especially as people increasingly recognise it doesn't work anyway.

It's really the monster design that is the issue. The game doesn't scale in a satisfying way. I've seen GMs completely blow the CR budget out of the water in order to make the game more challenging, but in experience they encounter the following issues:

- As the monsers become overlevelled at a certain point the game becomes very swingy and arbitrary, while this may be fine if the PCs are encountering a monster they should have run away from, it's an issue for those GMs who want the encounter to be some kind of big boss fight for that more common style of GMing.
- As well as becoming swingy, there's little PCs can do differently in response to an overlevelled group of monsters. There aren't that many tactical levers that players can pull in order to deal with overlevelled monsters - so even if the Players win a fight they shouldn't have won, it's often down to luck.
- Combat of this kind becomes incredibly time consuming. A really hard fight in 5e may take as long as a 4e fight. 5e combat is fast if the CR guidelines are followed, but quickly slows down if you go beyond them.

So really when GMs and Players say the game is too easy what they tend to mean is that they don't feel there is any way to make combat feel 'challenging' in a way that is actually satisfying and makes player victory feel rewarding.

There's also I think a little understood converse issue in that the kind of common fights that are just there, supposedly to drain resources often feel pointless (basically, they need more risk that something could go wrong to bring in enough tension for them not to feel pointless - although an additional factor here is that 5e is designed for location based dungeon crawling and most groups don't actually use it for that.)
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Thinking about this, I think the big issue underpinning all this is that the same game is trying to cater for both sandbox style play and for the dramatic arcs of story driven adventures that tend towards regular boss fights.

It's basically trying to be both B/X and 13th Age at the same time and its monster, rest and recovery design is sort of a muddle in the middle of these different priorities.
 
I find the challenging fights are the ones after all the spells are exhausted or the one against a spellcaster with lots of minions.
 
Eh, it always comes down to "Because Game" mechanics. The more of those you have in a system, the more limited of a gaming experience that it offers.
 
I honestly wonder what has been 'won' here.
WotC/Hasbro essentially ceded their plans, for the time being, to reverse the brand damage that was being done by themselves.
The OGL issues are on a back burner for a future redress.

Consumption is a one-way process, at least as far as the producer of the product is concerned.
Their interest in 'the brand' comes from a post-industrial ownership perspective.
'Creatives' are a cog, 'players' are the consumers.

Nothing really has changed. WotC/Hasbro still has ownership of the Intellectual Property and its rights.
D&D is still their brand to control as they see fit.

Given that we have seen how this evolved, it would be foolish not to go ahead with planned OGL alternatives.
As players, game moderators and creatives?
We owe it to ourselves to ensure the mechanisms for our folk tradition (thanks Matt Colville)are not solely in the hands of a singular, US-Based toy and media corporation.
 
Burgonet said:
I honestly wonder what has been 'won' here.
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WotC gave me exactly what I wanted and a little bit more/


Burgonet said:
WotC/Hasbro essentially ceded their plans, for the time being, to reverse the brand damage that was being done by themselves.
The OGL issues are on a back burner for a future redress.
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Not really, the OGL issues aren't really relevant anymore. WtC literally no longer has any motivation in the future to try and deauthorize the OGL 1.0a because the SRD is Creative Commons, which is irreversible.


Burgonet said:
Consumption is a one-way process, at least as far as the producer of the product is concerned.
Their interest in 'the brand' comes from a post-industrial ownership perspective.
'Creatives' are a cog, 'players' are the consumers.
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I, fr one, never had a problem with Hasbro being a company, and trying to make money.

In fact, when I first heard the Williams quote "D&D is under-monetized", I 100% agreed with her.


Burgonet said:
Nothing really has changed. WotC/Hasbro still has ownership of the Intellectual Property and its rights.
D&D is still their brand to control as they see fit.
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Um, yeah...Did you have an issue with that? Did you have some expectation that would change?

Burgonet said:
Given that we have seen how this evolved, it would be foolish not to go ahead with planned OGL alternatives.
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Certainly, the ORC is still on track, prolly Matt Colville is presumably doing his thing, and more people are researching creative commons. In fact this action by Wizards is likely going to spread awareness of the cc overall. All good stuff.

But none of that would have made up for the deauthorization of the ogl (legal or not) and all the orphaned works that would have resulted in, and the devastation of certain smaller publishers.
Burgonet said:
As players, game moderators and creatives?
We owe it to ourselves to ensure the mechanisms for our folk tradition (thanks Matt Colville)are not solely in the hands of a singular, US-Based toy and media corporation.
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Well, uh, they never were.

Like..."RPGs" as a concept, were never in danger.
 
David Johansen said:
The biggest problem with 5e is that everything is treated as an object in a game rather than an object in a living world. As such it will never be immersive, will always feel fake and plastic.
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I find this being accurate for many games, but if I push too hard, such as insisting bows need to be unstrung when in storage, or strings getting ruined when wet, I get a lot of pushback from the players who want to treat the game as a game, not like it's the world's most advanced physics engine. Not that I've ever strongly enforced things mentioned in this post, but I once played under a GM who did. Wasn't fun for me at all...
 
Moracai said:
I find this being accurate for many games, but if I push too hard, such as insisting bows need to be unstrung when in storage, or strings getting ruined when wet, I get a lot of pushback from the players who want to treat the game as a game, not like it's the world's most advanced physics engine. Not that I've ever strongly enforced things mentioned in this post, but I once played under a GM who did. Wasn't fun for me at all...
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Honestly a lot of this stuff just doesn't work because it ends up being selective. If I have to string my bow everytime why not just play a Warlock? If my Fighter has to keep getting caught without his armour and suffering from resulting abysmal defences why not just play a Monk?
 
Moracai said:
I find this being accurate for many games, but if I push too hard, such as insisting bows need to be unstrung when in storage, or strings getting ruined when wet, I get a lot of pushback from the players who want to treat the game as a game, not like it's the world's most advanced physics engine. Not that I've ever strongly enforced things mentioned in this post, but I once played under a GM who did. Wasn't fun for me at all...
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I think a lot of people who don't want that kind of stuff, it isn't because "game" it is because they want to play in the action adventure genre. They want genre logic not things that they consider the tedium of realism.
 
TJS said:
Honestly a lot of this stuff just doesn't work because it ends up being selective. If I have to string my bow everytime why not just play a Warlock? If my Fighter has to keep getting caught without his armour and suffering from resulting abysmal defences why not just play a Monk?
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Heh, in my homebrew version of D&D there are no warlocks or monks. Probably because of verisimilitude reasons. But yeah, I know what you are getting at and we are not entirely off the same page here, I think.
 
James Gillen said:
If you think 5E was bad in that respect, you should try 4E D&D. Or even better, Fate.

JG
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FATE seemed a perfect fit for your story as a film or streaming series.
I ran a 'series' of a game set in the CORE Command universe and a variant of the rules did a great job of emulating spaceship drama fiction akin to Star Trek and the Orville.
 
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