Why didn't we switch to 4e/5e?

[noob]

It only proves elminster is not a sufficiently smart wizard: if he was as smart as someone on giant in the playground he would know the question but he would have never met the person who asked the question: one of his simulacrum of ice assassins or planar bound creatures would have met that person.

[Psyren]

From the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, D&D 3.0E;

In other words:

1) I'm only as strong as the plot needs me to be, so better to do nothing.
2) I don't know if good will result, so better to do nothing.
3) They could potentially counter anything I come up with, so better to do nothing.
4) Change is hard, so better to do nothing.

You can probably see why it's not very satisfying to have Elminster running around at all.

One thing I like about Eberron (and Golarion) is that they put a little more actual effort into explaining why the heavy hitters need adventurers to do their dirty work than that.

[Scots Dragon]

It only proves elminster is not a sufficiently smart wizard: if he was as smart as someone on giant in the playground he would know the question but he would have never met the person who asked the question: one of his simulacrum of ice assassins or planar bound creatures would have met that person.

It turns out that the Forgotten Realms was not actually written with Dungeons & Dragons 3.5E rules or exploits in mind. And to be fair, I don't exactly think that would have been a reasonable expectation to have since the setting was invented sometime around the mid-1960s and only officially adapted to D&D rules in the mid-1980s, and thus precedes Dungeons & Dragons 3.5E by an approximate decade and a half.

Also, the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book itself precedes the publication of at least one of those spells by several years.

[exelsisxax]

In other words:

1) I'm only as strong as the plot needs me to be, so better to do nothing.
2) I don't know if good will result, so better to do nothing.
3) They could potentially counter anything I come up with, so better to do nothing.
4) Change is hard, so better to do nothing.

You can probably see why it's not very satisfying to have Elminster running around at all.

One thing I like about Eberron (and Golarion) is that they put a little more actual effort into explaining why the heavy hitters need adventurers to do their dirty work than that.

"i'm a tree" and "i'm 10 year old girl" are very good reasons for not going out and reshaping the world in your image, especially under the baseline where they're only that strong because of special time/location dependent factors to begin with.

[Florian]

Breaking verisimilitude however kinda destroys the whole point of playing RPGs for some players though, me for instance.

Honestly, trouble with verisimilitude, epic fantasy, high magic and powerful monsters is that you need to integrate an artificial "barrier" like the "Blood War" to keep the internal consistency of the setting going. So it´s a "kinda-sorta" compromise from the start.

[Psyren]

"i'm a tree" and "i'm 10 year old girl" are very good reasons for not going out and reshaping the world in your image, especially under the baseline where they're only that strong because of special time/location dependent factors to begin with.

Precisely - those circumstances are far more credible than Elminster's tripe (which could apply to literally any mid-level or higher character's actions, begging the question of why there are adventurers in FR at all.)

Honestly, trouble with verisimilitude, epic fantasy, high magic and powerful monsters is that you need to integrate an artificial "barrier" like the "Blood War" to keep the internal consistency of the setting going. So it´s a "kinda-sorta" compromise from the start.

Blood War is artificial, sure, but it's still logical/believable. They have established that demons and devils in D&D behave a certain way, and spending a huge portion of their energy battling each other or doing other shortsighted things is in keeping with what they've set up. Thus, it helps verisimilitude rather than damaging it.

[Knaight]

I think I mentioned this already, when people say that they want high-level characters to wipe the floor with mooks, they probably want a liiiiitle bit more than that the absolute best and strongest character in the game can beat the very weakest and easiest monster in the manual

100 times the strength of a starting equivalent character is something like 400 times the strength of the easiest monster in the manual. That's more than the absolute best and strongest character beating the very weakest and easiest monster in the manual. That's a high level character utterly crushing a small handful of mid level characters, each of which can easily crush a small handful of low level characters, with monsters spread out on a similar range.

Looked at from a non-D&D centric perspective, D&D 5e is a game where characters get dramatically to ridiculously more powerful in combat, magic, and generally not dying. Skill usage, that falls by the wayside.

[CIDE]

I'm basically just going to second other people's opinions here about 5e. I like it but I haven't officially switched (My online games are all 3.p and in person games 5e) because there just isn't enough of 5e. There's too many things that was in 2e or 3.5 that I want to see before anything becomes official. I simply did not like 4e.

[Bohandas]

I don't usually care for it either outside NWN, Baldur's Gate, or IceWind Dale

Personally I'm even a little sketchy on these. Albeit not because of the setting or the story; Baldur's Gate had a fine story, it was just implemented terribly.

[FatR]

4E either not addressed my problems with 3.X at all (number-fiddling and collection of +1s to succeed; necessity to plan your build from level 1; Christmas Tree characters) or tried to heal headache by cutting off the patient's head (grid of 5-ft. squares in a game where we're supposed to fight flying dragons and teleporting demons). It also had a plethora of downright bad mechanics, including the sum total of their non-combat rules.

5E addressed the problem of mechanical complexity somewhat, but its method of trying (and sometimes failing) to keep everyone on RNG was pretty stupid, not only failing to fit traditional assumptions about DnDland, but also failing to pass common sense tests, like Conan the Barbarian being able to nearly always succeed on tasks where a random peasant would almost always fail. Also, just like 4E, 5E tried even harder to be nothing more than a tactical skirmish game, with only a poor pretense of non-combat rules. Even those relatively limited tools for playing actual fantasy stories that 3.X provided were gone, with absolutely basic stuff, like a defeated antagonist becoming a henchman or adding a character who is not a standard humanoid to the team suddenly requiring jumping through the hoops. Also, 5E has almost no support. If I have to make up nearly all adventures and a good deal of antagonists myself, I may as well write my own DnD fork.

[Mordaedil]

I always play D&D with never assuming a roll would cause a direct failure. For example, if I had my players climb a vine to reach a tree-house, I wouldn't have them fall off the vine if they failed their rolls, only extend the time it took to climb it, otherwise we'd just be looking at a circus of heavy-plated characters constantly falling off the tree and hitting the ground.

Likewise, repelling down merely affects how well you repel down, a successful check can negate all damage one would take compared to falling down, while a failed check might incur some damage, but because they are still holding on to something, I'd at most deal half damage even on a failed check. Or number of checks depending on the height.

That is regardless of edition we'd be playing too, the players should feel like heroes at least capable of doing mundane activities without clowning it up.

[Zombimode]

otherwise we'd just be looking at a circus of heavy-plated characters constantly falling off the tree and hitting the ground.

ACP can be offset by Str and ranks in climb. The "Circus of heavy-plated characters constantly falling off the tree and hitting the ground" is entirely composed of characters who can't climb but try to do so while wearing heavy armor.

[Mordaedil]

And I don't see what it adds to the game.

[johnbragg]

I always play D&D with never assuming a roll would cause a direct failure. For example, if I had my players climb a vine to reach a tree-house, I wouldn't have them fall off the vine if they failed their rolls, only extend the time it took to climb it, otherwise we'd just be looking at a circus of heavy-plated characters constantly falling off the tree and hitting the ground.

That is regardless of edition we'd be playing too, the players should feel like heroes at least capable of doing mundane activities without clowning it up.

Unless time is a really important factor, you shouldn't require a check to climb a rope. At first I was just giving my opinion, then I remembered the Take 10 rules. So it's RAW. If you're houseruling, it's even fair to say that Taking 10 increases (1.5x, 2x) the time for a task, to balance out the rules text which I can't find on the SRD (and so may be not RAW but a near-universal houserule, like Free Parking in Monopoly) that says you can't Take 10/20 if there's a penalty for failure.

On the other hand, EVERYTHING is more difficult when someone's shooting at you, I've been told. So that's where you have your Cirque du Gendarmes of plate-clad buffoons falling on top of each other while kobolds chuck wineskins of oil at them and the shaman cackles and cantrips up a flame to light them.

[johnbragg]

by the way, if anyone still cares about the OP topic:

Over the past 17 years, I have and we have houseruled 3X around the world and back.

I'm DMing a 5th edition campaign, and I do not yet have the 5E chops to figure out what the moving parts are to see what houserules would and wouldn't break.

[Rhedyn]

I like PF, but my group is hungering for something rules light.

5e basically failed us across multiple campaigns and GMs.

Thankfully we found Savage Worlds, a complete fleshed out game that is scratching that mid-crunch itch to keep both the rules heavy and rules light people happy.

I get why people are switching to 5e, the promise of a simple D&D experience that is a balanced good game is attractive regardless of a lack of character concepts. I just wish it was true. The lack of 5e's balance makes everything the edition gave up to achieve it's "balance" a hollow and empty trade. IMO it's a bad game and the worst form D&D has ever taken. I think people are only having fun with it because:
1) They are unaware of better rules light games that would make them question why they would bother with 5e
2) They never played D&D before and D&D is fun even if it's 5e
3) They are part of this weird group of people who can gauge their enjoyment of something in a vacuum and won't be bothered that they could be playing something better.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I get why people are switching to 5e, the promise of a simple D&D experience that is a balanced good game is attractive regardless of a lack of character concepts. I just wish it was true. The lack of 5e's balance makes everything the edition gave up to achieve it's "balance" a hollow and empty trade. IMO it's a bad game and the worst form D&D has ever taken. I think people are only having fun with it because:
1) They are unaware of better rules light games that would make them question why they would bother with 5e
2) They never played D&D before and D&D is fun even if it's 5e
3) They are part of this weird group of people who can gauge their enjoyment of something in a vacuum and won't be bothered that they could be playing something better.

Or 4) Because it feels pretty much like the D&D I know while being quicker to run, less egregiously unbalanced, and much more approachable for my casual-gamer friends. It's... I dunno, conceptually streamlined. It's not good for much beyond the core "pulpy-heroic dungeon crawls in fantasy land" experience, but hey-- if I want to play D&D, that's the experience I was craving to begin with.

[Rhedyn]

Or 4) Because it feels pretty much like the D&D I know while being quicker to run, less egregiously unbalanced, and much more approachable for my casual-gamer friends. It's... I dunno, conceptually streamlined. It's not good for much beyond the core "pulpy-heroic dungeon crawls in fantasy land" experience, but hey-- if I want to play D&D, that's the experience I was craving to begin with.

What other rules light or mid crunch games have you played such that you can be certain no other option is better (while still feeling like D&D)?

Also what is "feeling like D&D" in this context?

[johnbragg]

What other rules light or mid crunch games have you played such that you can be certain no other option is better (while still feeling like D&D)?

You're not understanding--it doesn't have to beat "every game in existence", or even "every game published." I just has to be better than the widely known D&D products--at this point 5E, 4E, PAthfinder/3.5. (Originally I had AD&D and BECMI on the list, but I don't think its any easier to recruit a group to play those in 2018 than it is to play a retroclone or your homebrewed system or Mutants and MAsterminds or whatever else.)

5E doesn't have to be *better* in some Platonic sense of the word than Savage Worlds or Fudge or Lamentations of the Flame Princess or Legend of the Five Rings or LOTR or SOIAF or Conan TTRPGs or Numenera or whatever. Being official D&D, it has a big enough brand name to command a player base that means you can start up a D&D campaign using 5th edition. Any non-D&D product, it's a much tougher job to assemble a group to play this thing they haven't heard of. (PAthfinder excepted, because it's "basically like 3rd edition D&D with some houserules")

The format of your question sounds like your followup is "Well that must mean you haven't played My Favorite Fantasy RPG, or you would see the light of the One True Faith." The point is, you need people to play. Even if Grod and I play Your Favorite Fantasy RPG, and agree that it is BETTER than 5E, that doesn't help us recruit a group of people who currently don't play TTRPGs to play our campaign, because it's this weird thing they've never heard of and it sounds like a lot of work to learn. (And is probably someone's terrible houserules anyway.)

Whereas "D&D" is something they're familiar with, at least in some form.

[Rhedyn]

You're not understanding--it doesn't have to beat "every game in existence", or even "every game published." I just has to be better than the widely known D&D products--at this point 5E, 4E, PAthfinder/3.5. (Originally I had AD&D and BECMI on the list, but I don't think its any easier to recruit a group to play those in 2018 than it is to play a retroclone or your homebrewed system or Mutants and MAsterminds or whatever else.)

5E doesn't have to be *better* in some Platonic sense of the word than Savage Worlds or Fudge or Lamentations of the Flame Princess or Legend of the Five Rings or LOTR or SOIAF or Conan TTRPGs or Numenera or whatever. Being official D&D, it has a big enough brand name to command a player base that means you can start up a D&D campaign using 5th edition. Any non-D&D product, it's a much tougher job to assemble a group to play this thing they haven't heard of. (PAthfinder excepted, because it's "basically like 3rd edition D&D with some houserules")

The format of your question sounds like your followup is "Well that must mean you haven't played My Favorite Fantasy RPG, or you would see the light of the One True Faith." The point is, you need people to play. Even if Grod and I play Your Favorite Fantasy RPG, and agree that it is BETTER than 5E, that doesn't help us recruit a group of people who currently don't play TTRPGs to play our campaign, because it's this weird thing they've never heard of and it sounds like a lot of work to learn. (And is probably someone's terrible houserules anyway.)

Whereas "D&D" is something they're familiar with, at least in some form.

I'm not saying any of that. Saying I needed a 4th category for people who like 5e does necessitate saying 5e is the best rules light game (for what you are trying to do with it :IMPLIED). Because I have "not knowing about better RPGs" and "not caring about better RPGs" covered.

I would be thrilled if 5e is what breaks D&D's majority forever by getting people into the idea that they can like systems that are easy to learn and then people go off and play better easy to learn systems.

Rules heavy games like PF and 3.5 have more inertia. They keep their fans. I like playing PF, but boy do few people in my group want to GM it (I don't either). I do hate playing 5e. Thankfully I can GM Savage Worlds and other people want to GM it instead of 5e. So Savage Worlds saved me from 5e or finding a new group of friends that I've known for over a decade.

[Grod_The_Giant]

What other rules light or mid crunch games have you played such that you can be certain no other option is better (while still feeling like D&D)?

Also what is "feeling like D&D" in this context?

Let's see. I've played, to a greater or lesser extent, multiple editions of Fate, Savage Worlds, Apocalypse World, Mutants and Masterminds, Maid, the Doctor Who RPG, a few homebrew systems; I've read (but not been able to play) Gumshoe, BADASS, True20, Risus, Dread, Deadlands (before it was Savage Worlds), one of the Marvel RPGs, and probably a few more that I can't remember off the top of my head because I'm at work and can't see my shelf right now. To say nothing of rules-heavy games like Exalted. Oh, and I wrote a rules-light homebrew system.

The thing is, every game, even generic ones, has its own distinct flavor. I've run very similar plots and settings with M&M, Fate, and D&D, and you know what? It's not the same experience. It really is not. If you want a chocolate chip cookie, a gingersnap isn't the same thing even if it's delicious in its own right.

As for the specific "flavor" of D&D... hmm. The Race/Class structure. Hit points, sans death spiral. Distinct damage rolls involving lots of different die types. Vancean casting, or at least that framework. Resource management as a significant element of the challenge. Familiar names on races, classes, spells, and so on. Binary win/lose conditions. d20+X skill checks. Attacks of opportunity making for somewhat sticky combat. Lots of exotic monsters, as opposed to largely humanoid opponents. Multiple fights in short order. Traps. Demons. Dungeons. Dragons.

[Rhedyn]

As for the specific "flavor" of D&D... hmm. The Race/Class structure. Hit points, sans death spiral. Distinct damage rolls involving lots of different die types. Vancean casting, or at least that framework. Resource management as a significant element of the challenge. Familiar names on races, classes, spells, and so on. Binary win/lose conditions. d20+X skill checks. Attacks of opportunity making for somewhat sticky combat. Lots of exotic monsters, as opposed to largely humanoid opponents. Multiple fights in short order. Traps. Demons. Dungeons. Dragons.

Yes, with that clarification your additional 4th category to "people that like 5e" is well understood.

"Feels like D&D" can be ambiguous, but your list of "D&D" elements is pretty 5e specific (at least in it's entirety) for mid-crunch or less crunch games.

I've only experienced short fights on 5e when our party consisted of 2 people instead of the normal (for us) 7.

[Potato_Priest]

3.5 also has a very active consumer base, OGL allowed more third-party content, and in general Wizards doesn't produce as much contents for its editions anymore. 4e will probably never catch up, 5e may or may not, but probably will not catch up either.

I agree. Production definitely seems slower for 5th edition than I gather it was for 3.5, despite the fact that the game is more popular now than it was at almost any time in the past.

[johnbragg]

As for the specific "flavor" of D&D... hmm. The Race/Class structure. Hit points, sans death spiral. Distinct damage rolls involving lots of different die types. Vancean casting, or at least that framework. Resource management as a significant element of the challenge. Familiar names on races, classes, spells, and so on. Binary win/lose conditions. d20+X skill checks. Attacks of opportunity making for somewhat sticky combat. Lots of exotic monsters, as opposed to largely humanoid opponents. Multiple fights in short order. Traps. Demons. Dungeons. Dragons.

So, only 3rd and 5th edition D&D. (And PAthfinder).

Basic doesn't have the race/class structure (Your race is your class), AD&D 1 & 2 don't have the d20 skills mechanic.

I'm not saying you're wrong--you are not having BADWRONGFUN. It's just interesting to me that the first half of the evolution of hte game no longer qualifies. (Setting aside evolutionary dead-ends like 4E)

[PersonMan]

So, only 3rd and 5th edition D&D. (And PAthfinder).

Basic doesn't have the race/class structure (Your race is your class), AD&D 1 & 2 don't have the d20 skills mechanic.

I'm not saying you're wrong--you are not having BADWRONGFUN. It's just interesting to me that the first half of the evolution of hte game no longer qualifies. (Setting aside evolutionary dead-ends like 4E)

Perhaps calling it "modern D&D" would be more accurate? From what I've heard, older editions of D&D were rather different in feel and how they played, so it could be a distinction worth making.

[Nupo]

I might get there eventually, just slow to change. I started with 1st edition (AD&D) in 1979. Stuck with that until we switched to 3.5 in 2004, then a gradual transition to Pathfinder over the last two years. I don't consider the change from 3.5 to Pathfinder to really be a change since they are so similar. I stuck with 1st edition for 25 years, so at that rate I will be on 3.5/Pathfinder until sometime around 2029.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I agree. Production definitely seems slower for 5th edition than I gather it was for 3.5, despite the fact that the game is more popular now than it was at almost any time in the past.

Not just seems-- it's drastically slower by any appreciable measure. I think I posted about this earlier in the thread, but by this point in 3.5's lifespan almost every sourcebook you ever refer to on a regular basis was published-- I think all of the variant magic systems, environmental books, Races of ____, I think almost all of the Complete _____s... 5e's had one dedicated player-options book.

So, only 3rd and 5th edition D&D. (And PAthfinder).

Basic doesn't have the race/class structure (Your race is your class), AD&D 1 & 2 don't have the d20 skills mechanic.

I'm not saying you're wrong--you are not having BADWRONGFUN. It's just interesting to me that the first half of the evolution of hte game no longer qualifies. (Setting aside evolutionary dead-ends like 4E)

Perhaps calling it "modern D&D" would be more accurate? From what I've heard, older editions of D&D were rather different in feel and how they played, so it could be a distinction worth making.

Yeah, that's perhaps fair. I've never played pre-3e D&D, so I dunno how those would fit into the image formative years of 3.5 stamped into my head.

[Kurald Galain]

Basic doesn't have the race/class structure (Your race is your class), AD&D 1 & 2 don't have the d20 skills mechanic.

2E does have a skill mechanic which is mathematically identical to d20+X. In fact, 2E's skill mechanic neatly manages to dodge all the complaints about 3E's skill system (skill points are too fiddly and diplomancy) as well as all the complaints about 5E's skill system (it's too random, "experts" routinely get beaten by amateurs, and you never learn new skills throughout your career).

Come to think of it, 5E is really nothing like 2E. 2E has detailed out-of-combat rules where 5E has none; 2E enforces class balance (or tries to) through drawbacks and side effects where 5E uses BA for everything; 2E uses different dice (and roll-high vs roll-low) for different subsystems where 5E reuses one mechanic for everything; and 2E has a metric ton of splatbooks where 5E has almost none. So it strikes me that players' claim that 5E is oh so much like 2E are more a case of nostalgia goggles than of actual resemblance.

[Grod_The_Giant]

2E does have a skill mechanic which is mathematically identical to d20+X. In fact, 2E's skill mechanic neatly manages to dodge all the complaints about 3E's skill system (skill points are too fiddly and diplomancy) as well as all the complaints about 5E's skill system (it's too random, "experts" routinely get beaten by amateurs, and you never learn new skills throughout your career).

How do 2e skills work, approximately?

[Quertus]

Also what is "feeling like D&D" in this context?

I think that phrase means many things to many people.

For me, it includes playing a Wizard hunting for scraps of arcane knowledge in the ruins of ancient (modern) civilizations, based out of a post apocalyptic civilization similar (on the surface, at least) to midevil Europe.

It includes my Wizard being in a party of diverse capabilities and backgrounds... or just 13 fighter-dwarves and a halfling burgler. It includes a cast of fantastic creatures, born from legend or created whole cloth. It can include, and feels that it theoretically can include (whether it actively does or not), dungeon delving, solving puzzles (and other (almost pure) player-side thinking), building civilizations, politics, kingdom management, and slaying horrible / incompetent / detrimental gods.