Why do almost all editions of D&D fall apart around 10th level

[kyoryu]

I think this pretty much sums up my feelings on the subject. Every iteration of D&D that I have seen revolves around combat. That's what the designers were and are focused on, and that's what the system is set up to handle. Try comparing the combat rules to the skill system in 5e, for example. One of them is thorough and detailed, the other is an afterthought.
If you want to run a game in which combat is the focus and skills are an afterthought, D&D can help. There are other systems for other things.

I'd actually argue that earlier editions (pre-2e) focused more on exploration than combat.

But, yeah.

[thirdkingdom]

I'd actually argue that earlier editions (pre-2e) focused more on exploration than combat.

But, yeah.

Yeah, the goal with earlier editions was to *avoid* combat when possible.

[137beth]

I'd actually argue that earlier editions (pre-2e) focused more on exploration than combat.

But, yeah.

Yeah, the goal with earlier editions was to *avoid* combat when possible.

Fair enough. I haven't played 2e, but in 1e there is certainly a lot about exploration. I still think combat is a bigger focus, just because of how much of the rulebooks are spent on their convoluted and intricate combat rules, but I can see the case for exploration being a bigger focus.

[MeeposFire]

I think there are more rules for combat but I think most people that play the game find they need more rules for that. Exploration in AD&D has more emphasis but it is not due to direct mechanics and more to do with rules that do not directly relate. For instance the XP rules for getting treasure give you an incentive to gain levels without fighting. That does not give you a direct rule for exploring but it does give you an incentive to not always fight.

[thirdkingdom]

Fair enough. I haven't played 2e, but in 1e there is certainly a lot about exploration. I still think combat is a bigger focus, just because of how much of the rulebooks are spent on their convoluted and intricate combat rules, but I can see the case for exploration being a bigger focus.

I'm actually not very familiar with 2e, so I can't speak to it, but I do know that in 0e, 1e and the Basic lines there is an implicit understanding that adventurers want to avoid combat whenever possible. The vast majority of XP is granted from finding and retrieving treasure, combat is deadly and swingy enough that fights are better off avoided when possible, and even the use of the reaction roll ensures that combat will occur only a fraction of times.

Let's look at magic-users in, say, B/X. A 9th level magic-user with no Constitution bonus will have, on average, 23 hit points. At, say, 14th level, the same magic-user will have 28 hit points, since after 9th level magic-users only gain 1 hp/level. Character death, even for high level characters, is much more a reality than in previous editions.

[Knaight]

That's the beauty of RPGs: no one's a "baggage carrier" unless they choose to be. However, if they choose to be, its their own fault, not the system's.

If your desire is truly for everything to be "balanced", you risk losing variety. Also, the quest for "balance" invariably becomes the quest for complexity.

Nonsense. Balance is more than one thing, and what matters varies by system - a huge variation in combat power matters a lot in a game hyper focused on combat and is totally irrelevant in something like Smallville which is fundamentally about characters navigating interpersonal relationships with members of their society who are generally not mortal enemies. The closest to a general model is spotlight balance, which has to do with the distribution of attention between the PCs and the level of impact they have on the things that matter for the setting. If that's exploring and killing things, you get a more D&D like balance. If it's interpersonal relationships you get a Smallville balance. If it's instigating a catastrophic chain of errors for comedic effect, you get Fiasco balance.

A well designed system should be made to encourage characters that fit within the specific spotlight balance. D&D as a hyper focused combat adventurer game has a set of character classes for combatant adventurers. There's a reason there's no merchant class in there (and that does detract from the genericness of the system, but that's a different argument), and there's definitely a reason there's no classes focused on staying put and living a mundane life. Having that class would be a trap option in the system where the system is absolutely at fault for creating the illusion of a meaningful option where none existed. In Smallville there's a reason that part of the character creation system is the establishment of a relationship web with various NPCs, other PCs, etc. and that there isn't a bunch of advice on how to create asocial loners who have no community ties. Asocial loners with no communities ties are going to be left behind by the system, and that's not the fault of the system. Fiasco similarly establishes a web (albeit a much smaller one), while also loading the PCs down with weaknesses and vulnerabilities that can go horribly awry. It's a black comedy game about things going horribly wrong, and while it can handle normal people fine high functioning people who aren't unreasonably unlucky get left behind.

As for the quest for complexity, that's even further off. Even early D&D is among the more complex games out there, and 3e is way up in the ranks of complexity. Making games more complex tends to make them harder and harder to balance, and there are plenty of very well balanced non-D&D games that are also simpler than D&D (more than a few also support a wider variety of characters, if not a wider variety of builds. Those of us playing them tend to care a lot more about the former than the latter, so it works out).

Yes, I've heard this before, the whole "tier" argument from 3rd+. It's a load of horse droppings. It's the argument that no one would ever want to play, or could have fun playing Jimmy Olson because he can't do what Superman can do. Therefore no one should be allowed to play Superman unless everyone is playing a Superman so the Jimmy Olson player doesn't have to feel inferior. Sorry, not buying it. If you want to play Superman, play Superman. If you want to play Jimmy, play Jimmy. Everyone has fun playing the character they want to play. If you feel the need to be the most effective character in the group, then play a Wizard. If you don't need the spotlight in every situation, play something else.

No. It's the argument that in a combat heavy game where the focus is on how characters get past obstacles Superman and Jimmy Olson don't fit together well. That's usually not overly stated, both because it's an underlying system assumption and because most D&D players have only played D&D and thus are not in a good position to see underlying assumptions*, but it's there. It also doesn't argue that everyone needs to be equivalent, just that the total range needs to be restricted. Superman can work with Batman just fine. Batman can work with The Shoveler just fine. Superman and The Shoveler is a system induced problem waiting to happen, but only because of what the focus of the game causes balance to be. Again, Smallville is totally fine with Superman going alongside Jimmy Olsen. I'm pretty sure they're both example characters even, and if Olsen isn't then you can just pick any number of non supers who are instead.

*Much the same way that one tends not to notice their own accent.

[CharonsHelper]

*Much the same way that one tends not to notice their own accent.

I don't have an accent. Everyone else does!

(Actually - since I know that I have an accent, but being from the midwest I practically don't since we're the most easily understood by everyone else - hence all actors/reporters being taught to speak like us. I know someone from Texas who says we all sound like news casters.)

[thirdkingdom]

Nonsense. Balance is more than one thing, and what matters varies by system - a huge variation in combat power matters a lot in a game hyper focused on combat and is totally irrelevant in something like Smallville which is fundamentally about characters navigating interpersonal relationships with members of their society who are generally not mortal enemies. The closest to a general model is spotlight balance, which has to do with the distribution of attention between the PCs and the level of impact they have on the things that matter for the setting. If that's exploring and killing things, you get a more D&D like balance. If it's interpersonal relationships you get a Smallville balance. If it's instigating a catastrophic chain of errors for comedic effect, you get Fiasco balance.

A well designed system should be made to encourage characters that fit within the specific spotlight balance. D&D as a hyper focused combat adventurer game has a set of character classes for combatant adventurers. There's a reason there's no merchant class in there (and that does detract from the genericness of the system, but that's a different argument), and there's definitely a reason there's no classes focused on staying put and living a mundane life. Having that class would be a trap option in the system where the system is absolutely at fault for creating the illusion of a meaningful option where none existed. In Smallville there's a reason that part of the character creation system is the establishment of a relationship web with various NPCs, other PCs, etc. and that there isn't a bunch of advice on how to create asocial loners who have no community ties. Asocial loners with no communities ties are going to be left behind by the system, and that's not the fault of the system. Fiasco similarly establishes a web (albeit a much smaller one), while also loading the PCs down with weaknesses and vulnerabilities that can go horribly awry. It's a black comedy game about things going horribly wrong, and while it can handle normal people fine high functioning people who aren't unreasonably unlucky get left behind.

As for the quest for complexity, that's even further off. Even early D&D is among the more complex games out there, and 3e is way up in the ranks of complexity. Making games more complex tends to make them harder and harder to balance, and there are plenty of very well balanced non-D&D games that are also simpler than D&D (more than a few also support a wider variety of characters, if not a wider variety of builds. Those of us playing them tend to care a lot more about the former than the latter, so it works out).


No. It's the argument that in a combat heavy game where the focus is on how characters get past obstacles Superman and Jimmy Olson don't fit together well. That's usually not overly stated, both because it's an underlying system assumption and because most D&D players have only played D&D and thus are not in a good position to see underlying assumptions*, but it's there. It also doesn't argue that everyone needs to be equivalent, just that the total range needs to be restricted. Superman can work with Batman just fine. Batman can work with The Shoveler just fine. Superman and The Shoveler is a system induced problem waiting to happen, but only because of what the focus of the game causes balance to be. Again, Smallville is totally fine with Superman going alongside Jimmy Olsen. I'm pretty sure they're both example characters even, and if Olsen isn't then you can just pick any number of non supers who are instead.

*Much the same way that one tends not to notice their own accent.

I'd argue this point somewhat. 1e is certainly complicated (I'm looking at you, segments, weapon speed, psionics, and unarmed combat!) but OD&D shares a kinship that is closer to B/X than 1e. OD&D certainly wasn't complex, but it was poorly written. Or rather, it was written with the assumption that the reader would already be familiar with wargame -- specifically Chainmail -- mechanics.

Otherwise I agree with you that its important to judge balance on what the system is trying to accomplish.

[MeeposFire]

I don't have an accent. Everyone else does!

(Actually - since I know that I have an accent, but being from the midwest I practically don't since we're the most easily understood by everyone else - hence all actors/reporters being taught to speak like us. I know someone from Texas who says we all sound like news casters.)

Lol the big joke about that is that the midwest does have an accent and in fact it is getting farther and farther from that broadcast standard that was chosen in the early part of the 20th century.

I live currently outside of Cleveland where that "broadcast" standard English was codified by a professor at a local university (he chose it by how they spoke in his local area). Nearly everybody around here claims they do not have an accent but it is not actually true and when they get asked about their accent they often get upset with the idea that they have an accent at all.

Now the accent does change depending on where exactly you live but long story short there has been a change in English being spoken from Rochester west to past Chicago I believe (some sort of vowel shift) and ironically the part of the country that thinks has no accent actually has one and is getting thicker by the year.

[CharonsHelper]

Now the accent does change depending on where exactly you live but long story short there has been a change in English being spoken from Rochester west to past Chicago I believe (some sort of vowel shift) and ironically the part of the country that thinks has no accent actually has one and is getting thicker by the year.

Really? I was under the impression that most of the world's English accents were lessening due to globalization & TV/radio. *shrug* I'm certainly no expert. (And yes - I know that we Ohioans have an accent [though I'm Columbus] it was just a joke.)

[MeeposFire]

Really? I was under the impression that most of the world's English accents were lessening due to globalization & TV/radio. *shrug* I'm certainly no expert. (And yes - I know that we Ohioans have an accent [though I'm Columbus] it was just a joke.)

To an extent that is true. However there are subtle things that you may not notice when you are around others like you but then you leave and people start to notice.

There was an interesting story based off of an Ohio University student here is the article if you are interested.

http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/...nt?oid=4949852

[2D8HP]

So when you reach high enough levels that there is literally no reason for you to remain in the group because you're just a waste of resources because you didn't pick a casting class at level 1, that's your fault, not the games?

I've never played 2e to 4e so I can't speak on them, but when I played "Oe" and "1e" Magic User PC's were almost only encountered at conventions where you started at higher levels, but at "home" games even when you rolled a high Intelligence, Magic User PC's were very rare, because with just one spell a game day, and low HP, it just wasn't that much fun to play a MU at first level.

[Morty]

The argument about how "balance means losing variety" would ring a bit less hollow if more editions of D&D had any actual variety in character creation without using magic.

[Milo v3]

I've never played 2e to 4e so I can't speak on them, but when I played "Oe" and "1e" Magic User PC's were almost only encountered at conventions where you started at higher levels, but at "home" games even when you rolled a high Intelligence, Magic User PC's were very rare, because with just one spell a game day, and low HP, it just wasn't that much fun to play a MU at first level.

It's primarily a 3e problem (it sort of exists in 5e but it's a much much smaller issue because of how they reduced how powerful casters can get and bounded accuracy means it's harder for them to auto-win things, and the skill system allows for rule-zero easier so non-casters can "theoretically" keep up abit better).

[hifidelity2]

Lol the big joke about that is that the midwest does have an accent and in fact it is getting farther and farther from that broadcast standard that was chosen in the early part of the 20th century.

I live currently outside of Cleveland where that "broadcast" standard English was codified by a professor at a local university (he chose it by how they spoke in his local area). Nearly everybody around here claims they do not have an accent but it is not actually true and when they get asked about their accent they often get upset with the idea that they have an accent at all.

Now the accent does change depending on where exactly you live but long story short there has been a change in English being spoken from Rochester west to past Chicago I believe (some sort of vowel shift) and ironically the part of the country that thinks has no accent actually has one and is getting thicker by the year.

Actually I don't have an accent as I am English - you all however do as you are American

[CharonsHelper]

Actually I don't have an accent as I am English - you all however do as you are American

Though of note, I believe that high class Southern (southern bell style) is supposed to bethe closest to old-school English.

Starting in the late 18th century England (arguably intentionally) changed their pronunciations, while the wealthy of the south (who spoke essentially the same accent beforehand) didn't.

(The same is true of French. Quebec French is more old-school than France's French. I believe that the argument is because England/France were more urban, and pronunciations change faster in cities. *shrug*)

http://the-toast.net/2014/03/19/a-li...cents-of-yore/

[Mordar]

Yea, back in my day, we had incredible detailed and rich stories that would all be worthy of Pulitzer prizes. Like Tomb of Horrors, or Keep on the Borderland. Nothing can compare with the deep characterization and themes of those amazing stories.
And while I haven't actually played it, a quick read through the relevant Wikipedia page suggests that World of Warcraft does, in fact, have a plot. And it has a far more intricate and detailed plot than the published D&D adventures when you were a kid had.

Ah, but the interaction and impact on the plot...that's a horse of a different color! The paper-thin plot of Keep or Tomb can (and is) impacted by the players...the rich tapestry of WoW isn't. Not even a little bit. While there are certainly lots of D&D players who ignore the plot of their own game, virtually every group has at least one or two players who are invested in and impacting the plot of that home game. I'd wager there are lots more WoW players (percentage basis, to forestall any semantic argument) completely ignoring or ignorant of the intricate and detailed (and frankly pretty cool) plots of WoW...

- M

[kyoryu]

Ah, but the interaction and impact on the plot...that's a horse of a different color! The paper-thin plot of Keep or Tomb can (and is) impacted by the players...the rich tapestry of WoW isn't. Not even a little bit.

I'd argue that most Organized Play groups edge closer to the WoW-type experience.

[barna10]

This was originally posted by Frank Mentzer on FB and sums-up my thoughts

Sometimes I like a 7-course dinner with everything, a good wine, and a classy item from the dessert cart.

And sometimes I just grab a burger. (With too much cheese, since I'm in Wisconsin.)

In gaming, we all enjoy starting a character and working up. We tend to evaluate game playability and enjoyment based on our characters' functionality in this low range.

So why do I rarely hear about the other side -- starting with a mid- or high-level character and enjoying that part of the game?

The usual excuse in BECMI (my creation of the '80s) is "Level 36? No WAY do I have time to work up to that... I have a life, y'know!" So who said you have to eat the full 7-course meal? Jump to dessert and skip the rest. ;>

I know that BECMI works all the way up. (Well, okay, 'cept for thieves; I plan to do a free fix for that.) There are quite a few great adventures for levels in the teens and twenties.

You oughta try it. Don't tell me you're scared of new turf; you do that all the time in gaming. Yes, you will have a fair amount of resource management to deal with (frex, yes, your L21 cleric has 35 spells, every day). Why does that bug you? As I got older I had LOTS more real-life options and resources to juggle. You did too (or you will). It's not THAT hard, just a reorientation, a different way of looking at the game (or life).

One problem has always been treating mid- or high-level play as low-level on steroids... the same ol' same ol' dungeon/wilderness jaunt, whack bigger monsters, get bigger treasures, go home. ::yawn:: Or sometimes the problem goes the other direction, world-saving every week, like superheroes. ::re-yawn::

Here's the key: These adventures should involve little or no Force. Quite a lot of D&D adventuring (whatever edition) is based on using force to get your way (often the kill-the-monsters meme). Yawn again.

In the realworld, force is the ultimate resolution. But BEFORE that you get socioeconomic conflict, politics, negotiations, and the THREAT of force (either implicitly or overtly) having far more effect than its actual use.

Oh, I see... you're just not good enough a Game Master to create a scenario or setting where roleplaying, interaction, situation analysis, and other non-combat factors are prominent. You and your players just want a simplistic kill-the-bad-guy thing. If that's the case, if you just want comic-style escapism and nothing to really work your brain, then ignore this.

Ignore this unless you want to reach further and reach the great untapped potential of what our role-playing hobby can achieve.

[CharonsHelper]

This was originally posted by Frank Mentzer on FB and sums-up my thoughts

Not only do I mostly disagree, but it was written in an extremely self-congratulatory manner of knowing that if you don't do things his way, it means that you're not a good enough GM. *eye-roll*

Edit: Also - I fail to see the relevance to the topic at hand.

[Knaight]

Not only do I mostly disagree, but it was written in an extremely self-congratulatory manner of knowing that if you don't do things his way, it means that you're not a good enough GM. *eye-roll*

No kidding. That this comes with him implicitly admitting that he apparently doesn't do adventures about the conflicts he deems more valuable until high level is the icing on the cake. I mean, look at this:

In the realworld, force is the ultimate resolution. But BEFORE that you get socioeconomic conflict, politics, negotiations, and the THREAT of force (either implicitly or overtly) having far more effect than its actual use.

Oh, I see... you're just not good enough a Game Master to create a scenario or setting where roleplaying, interaction, situation analysis, and other non-combat factors are prominent. You and your players just want a simplistic kill-the-bad-guy thing. If that's the case, if you just want comic-style escapism and nothing to really work your brain, then ignore this.

Ignore this unless you want to reach further and reach the great untapped potential of what our role-playing hobby can achieve.

This doesn't take characters with huge amounts of personal power, which is what the system gives. All of these things can easily be achieved in a game about normal people, which in D&D would be low level. As for great untapped potential, that potential is tapped all the time. Tapping it is routine, and this arrogant, self congratulatory attitude just doesn't fit such a mundane achievement. It's like someone expounding on their brilliance because they managed to do arithmetic.

[137beth]

Ah, but the interaction and impact on the plot...that's a horse of a different color! The paper-thin plot of Keep or Tomb can (and is) impacted by the players...the rich tapestry of WoW isn't. Not even a little bit. While there are certainly lots of D&D players who ignore the plot of their own game, virtually every group has at least one or two players who are invested in and impacting the plot of that home game. I'd wager there are lots more WoW players (percentage basis, to forestall any semantic argument) completely ignoring or ignorant of the intricate and detailed (and frankly pretty cool) plots of WoW...

- M

Not really accurate on either front.

In the case of ToH and KotBL, the adventures themselves don't provide you with any ideas as to how players can influence the story, and they don't even really acknowledge it as a possibility. It's possible, if you hack at KotBL long enough, and write an enourmous amount of your own material, to create an adventure in which the players can have a meaningful impact on the story, but the published adventure will be pushing back against you every step of the way. If you want a story-rich adventure with lots of player choice, you would have an easier time writing your own adventure from scratch that trying to modify KotBL or ToH, because those published adventures won't help you at all in developing a player-choice-driven game.

Of course, there are tabletop RPGs which are already well suited to having player choice impact the story. I usually recommend Word Mill's Mythic Roleplaying to roleplayers interested in learning about how to do collaborative story-telling in an RPG.


On the video-game side of things, I'll admit I'm not really familiar with World of Warcraft. However, there are many MMOs which do give players a significant amount of control over the story. I don't know if WoW is one of those games, at least without considerable modding/hacking. In the world of offline video games, there are games like Undertale in which the player's choices have an enormous impact on the plot.

As with tabletop games, it's possible to take a video game that isn't really designed to allow for a player-driven story and modify it until it is. The original Super Mario Bros, for example, has about as much plot as KotBL or ToH. And out of the box, it gives players the same amount of influence over the plot as KotBL and ToH do: none whatsoever. However, as with KotBL, you could modify it. You could create an elaborate fantasy world, and hack it onto the SMB code. And you could add a bunch of opportunities for players to impact your story. And you could perform all of these modification to Super Mario Bros with nothing but your imagination and the computer you are using to read this forum.
But just as with Keep on the Borderland, you'd find that starting with SMB as a base to modify won't actually help you. On the contrary, if you want to create a story-rich game driven by player choice, you'd have a much easier time starting from scratch than trying to modify SMB or KotBL into the sort of game you want. Or, if making a game from scratch is too much work for you, you could start from a game that is already suited to a player-driven story-rich experience, like The Witcher or Undertale, and mod from there.

[Telok]

I had a great experience with Keep on the Borderlands having a player driven plot. What it didn't have was a predefined plot that was set up before the game. Our plot emerged during play from the decisions we made and the reactions of the monsters. I can compare that to my recent experience with the 5e Out of the Abyss which is player driven but does have a predefined plot and falls apart if the players don't know what the plot is. That's what happened with us, we stuck to our goal of "escape the underdark ASAP" and were perfectly happy to let random demon lords eat all the drow and mind flayers that caused everyone so much trouble. We were on track to get out at 5th level and had no interest or incentive to return. Plot? Yes. Player driven? Yes. Good adventure? Not for us.

[barna10]

Not only do I mostly disagree, but it was written in an extremely self-congratulatory manner of knowing that if you don't do things his way, it means that you're not a good enough GM. *eye-roll*

Edit: Also - I fail to see the relevance to the topic at hand.

And again I say: we'll never see eye-to-eye. If a quote from one of the grognards that helped design the very game we're talking about isn't relevant, I don't know what is.

Especially this portion:

...One problem has always been treating mid- or high-level play as low-level on steroids... the same ol' same ol' dungeon/wilderness jaunt, whack bigger monsters, get bigger treasures, go home. ::yawn:: Or sometimes the problem goes the other direction, world-saving every week, like superheroes. ::re-yawn::...

So yes, Frank is "self-congratulatory" because he literally wrote the book! And yes, if someone is having trouble running the game, they're probably not a very good DM. Not saying he or she never will be a good DM, just not yet. Sorry, truth hurts. The game can't run itself. There is no auto-pilot, Not even with a published adventure.

[Knaight]

And again I say: we'll never see eye-to-eye. If a quote from one of the grognards that helped design the very game we're talking about isn't relevant, I don't know what is.

A person who designed something claiming it's perfect and that any flaws people are having with it is just because they're using it incorrectly is if anything in less of a position to be taken seriously than someone who wasn't involved in its creation and just genuinely likes it.

So yes, Frank is "self-congratulatory" because he literally wrote the book! And yes, if someone is having trouble running the game, they're probably not a very good DM. Not saying he or she never will be a good DM, just not yet. Sorry, truth hurts. The game can't run itself. There is no auto-pilot, Not even with a published adventure.

That's one way to put it. Another would be that when someone routinely GMs excellent games with other systems and then sees a quality drop when DMing 1e, it's an indication that system flaws are dragging the game down.

[Cluedrew]

To barna10: Are you saying* that the game requires a higher level of skill to run in the 10+ range than in the 1-9 range? Because if that is true (even if the games you end up running are even more fun) the game will fall apart around 10th level for anyone who is good enough to run an low level game, but not good enough to run a high level game. I don't have any numbers on this but that could be a lot of games.

* Or are you in agreement with Frank who you believe is saying, either way.

[Yora]

I've never played 2e to 4e so I can't speak on them, but when I played "Oe" and "1e" Magic User PC's were almost only encountered at conventions where you started at higher levels, but at "home" games even when you rolled a high Intelligence, Magic User PC's were very rare, because with just one spell a game day, and low HP, it just wasn't that much fun to play a MU at first level.

The big change, and literal game changer, was the drop of XP for gold. OD&D, Basic, and 1st edition all worked under the assumption that players are motivated to steal treasures without getting into fight for it. In 2nd edition this disappears but the rest of the rules remain mostly the same, which eventually lead to a very different experience.
I believe 2nd edition had various class-specific task based XP rewards, but at 3rd edition at the latest XP was almost only for combat. Instead of being motivated to avoid combat, you now get urged to seek it.

[barna10]

To barna10: Are you saying* that the game requires a higher level of skill to run in the 10+ range than in the 1-9 range? Because if that is true (even if the games you end up running are even more fun) the game will fall apart around 10th level for anyone who is good enough to run an low level game, but not good enough to run a high level game. I don't have any numbers on this but that could be a lot of games.

* Or are you in agreement with Frank who you believe is saying, either way.

I'm not sure what Frank was trying to say. I can't speak fro him.

What I can say is I didn't take his message as insulting at all. I 100% agreed with it.

That being said, I don't think it has as much to do with the skill of the GM as it has to do with his creativity. The game can't give you creativity, no "system" can. Running high-level games aren't as simple as rolling a few dice and setting up a few combats. It takes creativity to keep the game fresh and entertaining. Also, it requires that the players actually want to do something other than hack'n'slash. If there is no player buy-in to more mature plots, then the game will fall apart.

So, I believe the GM and the players are the "problem" when the game starts falling apart. This can happen at any level.

[2D8HP]

The big change, and literal game changer, was.....
...... at 3rd edition at the latest XP was almost only for combat. Instead of being motivated to avoid combat, you now get urged to seek it.

Since it seems to be the most popular edition I still want to learn it, but the more I learn about 3.x the less it seems to be for me (from my brief glance at 4e on the other hand, it so different from the D&D that I knew I fear the learning curve would be too high, plus who would I play it with?).
I suspect that I will stick with 5e and the few rare'70's and '80's rules D&D games that I'm lucky enough to play.
From my point of view 5e becomes a great game with a little bit of rules subtraction (and some familiarity with classic style play).
Besides level limits what improves 3e?

[Knaight]

That being said, I don't think it has as much to do with the skill of the GM as it has to do with his creativity. The game can't give you creativity, no "system" can. Running high-level games aren't as simple as rolling a few dice and setting up a few combats. It takes creativity to keep the game fresh and entertaining. Also, it requires that the players actually want to do something other than hack'n'slash. If there is no player buy-in to more mature plots, then the game will fall apart.

This is what we're talking about. The assumption that everyone who dislikes high level D&D dislikes it because they only want to hack'n'slash is abject nonsense. The assumption that the problem is an absence of buy-in to more mature plots is abject nonsense. That it comes from someone who basically admits that they run low level games that way while simultaneously chastising people for the way he incorrectly assumes they play is the icing on the cake.