Why the hate on 5e?

[EggKookoo]

What I like about D&D in general and 5e in particular is how it walks a quirky line between concrete nuts & bolts mechanics and quantum-mechanics-like abstraction. There are more grounded and logical systems out there but they lack sufficient gaps to stimulate my imagination. There are more abstract and pure "theater of the mind" systems but they feel loose and floaty. D&D has an alchemy that feels right for me.

I mean, just for an example, I love the ridiculous non-logic of how magic missile can unerringly strike a creature that the player selects even if the caster can't isolate it in a crowd. The player knowing that the creature is there is enough for the spell to work. That's insane, but it's also great. Few other systems would have the guts to do that.

And it's not just nostalgia. I played many hours of Villains & Vigilantes, World of Darkness (mostly Werewolf: The Apocalypse), DC Heroes, and probably some number of game-years (or at least many game-months) of Call of Cthulhu before I played more than a token session of D&D. Once I started with D&D in earnest back in the 2e days, I was hooked.

[Kane0]

As a lover or a hater?

Lover. It's very easy to play, DM and 'brew.

[Max_Killjoy]

Something to ponder when looking at varied opinions on systems and approaches.

http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.ph...ion-same-rule/
https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress...les-vs-rulings

[CorporateSlave]

The DM isn't wrong, he's entitled to his opinion.

The DM is wrong. He is insulting to his players and left (at least) one feeling hurt after the game.

Congrats, ******y DM, you found the one way to lose at an RPG...to make it so the players don't have fun.

[KorvinStarmast]

Lover. It's very easy to play, DM and 'brew.

I feel the love.
5e brought me back to the game after a long absence.

And to the hobby.

In the last two years, I have also played Honey Heist, Great Ork Gods, Golden Sky Stories, Dungeon world, and recently a Tunnels and Trolls game has cropped up that I hope becomes an ongoing campaign. One of these days I hope to run a Lady Blackbird session, but I need to get the right group of people together.

5e does a lot of things well, and it returns the game to "here's my ruling, play on" which is how it was supposed to happen.

My favorite Dave Arneson quote: Rules lawyers are the enemy

(Or worlds almost exactly like that)

[Morty]

I don't like 5E a lot, but what elevates it above 3E (which, to be fair, isn't hard, as 3E is my least favorite system of all I've seen or played) is that it plays to its strengths a lot more.

3E tries to be varied, customizable and whatnot, but the class/level system will directly hinder any attempts at doing so. So it needs mountains of supplementary material to even get close to its goal. 5E tries to deliver a predictable, recognisable and accessible D&D experience, which levels and classes do actually help with.

[Ignimortis]

Personally I haven't seen/met anyone who HATES 5E. Conversely I haven't met any who LOVE it either.

I wouldn't call it hate, but I dislike 5e deeply despite playing it from time to time (then again, each time I play it, I remember why I dislike it). It takes everything I didn't like about 3.5 and Pathfinder (boring core classes, insistence on "mundane martials and fantastic casters", resource-driven extended adventure day) and drops everything I liked about 3.5 or Pathfinder (wacky and cool subsystems, more limited casters in supplements, flexible adventuring day once you got into aforementioned subsystems, the ability to optimize a subpar concept to workable levels, the progression from zero to demigod).

Worst part is, most people seem to genuinely like this and so there's very little hope that further releases will be anything far removed from 5e.

[GreyBlack]

Like I said I play both. I was just pointing out when you take in all the factors the number of real options dwindle if you want to have the whole table on the same relative power level.

I would like to see a mix of the two in the future.

Oh, apologies. Meant the royal "you". Again, 5e is very middle ground in approach, so it allows new players to explore which parts of the game are appealing and which aren't. And part of the appeal of 3.x is some of the trash options because it makes you feel that much smarter and better at the game when you pick the right ones.

Not a game for everyone; some will prefer the 4e model over that, some will go for 1e/2e, etc.

[EggKookoo]

Worst part is, most people seem to genuinely like this and so there's very little hope that further releases will be anything far removed from 5e.

I suspect it will be a good long time before we see a new edition. WotC knows what they have here, in terms of sales.

[Waazraath]

I agree that "trap" isn't a great word, and I wouldn't use it at all normally outside the context of this thread where someone else said "trap" first--I'd say "highly situational." Monte Cook's example was the Toughness feat, useful in a specific handful of situations, which isn't quite the same thing as a trap that deliberately and maliciously harms you.

I think we're basically on the same page, except for me not knowing much about 3E except that they ditched most of AD&D's restrictions on spellcasters and spellcasting, gave clerics a bunch of extra attacks, and made crafting magic items extremely easy.

In 5E, strong build choices are overkill really unless you or your DM has cranked the difficulty way up. That doesn't mean huge power gaps don't exist, it just means there's no practical difference between successfully completing a WotC adventure, and successfully soloing a WotC adventure without using up more than 20% of your spell slots or losing more than 30% of your HP. Do we agree on that?

Yeah, think we are mostly on the same page here.

[ZorroGames]

I suspect it will be a good long time before we see a new edition. WotC knows what they have here, in terms of sales.

Thank you {Scrubbed}

I for one really do not want another edition in the near future ( say several years.)

The people who like 0D&D, AD&D both versions, 3.x, PF, 4e, all can play those happily without trying to force 5e into a clone of their preferences. Yes I play AL but I have begun to sketch out a world (my third since the early 1970s counting befor D&D was published) for playing that probably will be about 90+% AL like.

I know, heresy!

If you dislike a game system - don’t play it. There, wasn’t that easy?!

[Bigmouth]

*Raises hand*

Heh. If I was including people I met online, then yes, I suppose I would have to say I have met people who love 5E. Oddly, they mostly seem to be found on 5E forums that I frequent.

In the meat world, the people I know who like nuts and bolts prefer PF. The people who don't like all that mechanical stuff prefer Dungeon World or FATE. 5E seems to occupy the middle ground. My PFers don't like it more than DW or FATE and my DW/FATE crew don't hate it the way that they hate "Mathfinder".

[GreyBlack]

Heh. If I was including people I met online, then yes, I suppose I would have to say I have met people who love 5E. Oddly, they mostly seem to be found on 5E forums that I frequent.

In the meat world, the people I know who like nuts and bolts prefer PF. The people who don't like all that mechanical stuff prefer Dungeon World or FATE. 5E seems to occupy the middle ground. My PFers don't like it more than DW or FATE and my DW/FATE crew don't hate it the way that they hate "Mathfinder".

Whoah there, you can't go bringing the meat world into a 5e internet forum. I'm pretty sure that's against the rules of the internet.

[ZorroGames]

Whoah there, you can't go bringing the meat world into a 5e internet forum. I'm pretty sure that's against the rules of the internet.

OMG, how true! LOL! 😉😅😂🤪

[patchyman]

Count me as one of the fans of 5e. The people I play with mostly have families and careers, so they don’t have the time/inclination to master a new complex rule set.

On the other hand, FATE and similar systems work well if you grok the ruleset, but some of my players don’t, and it feels a bit too freeform for my taste.

[MilkmanDanimal]

Have been playing TTRPGs for almost 40 years, and 5e's my favorite game ever. It's intuitive, fits together, and provides just enough of a rules framework so I can get moving, and, while it's not perfect, it's balanced well-enough that you can just play any character you want and be fine. Half-Orc Wizard? Sure, why not. Goliath DEX-based Rogue? What the heck. Sure, you're not optimal, but 5e punishes you far, far less for being non-optimal than so many other games, and the thing I grew to really dislike about 3.5 was not that you could optimize, but you HAD to optimize. If one person at your table has the right build and has planned the right classes/prestige classes/feats, they'll so far outshine the non-optimized characters that they might as well not show up. There's a massive gulf in terms of character capability in 3.5, and all those options wound up making the game have way less flexibility in the long run, because you were locked into your build from level 1 on and could just switch on the fly to something that sounded interesting, which I've been able to do in 5e without an issue.

People who really know 3.5 know how to more or less beat the system, and find all the ways to make their characters basically walking gods, and 5e doesn't have that. For me, that's a huge, huge advantage, because I don't want homework; I want fun.

[ZorroGames]

Snip

People who really know 3.5 know how to more or less beat the system, and find all the ways to make their characters basically walking gods, and 5e doesn't have that. For me, that's a huge, huge advantage, because I don't want homework; I want fun.

Roger that. If it is work but not fun - Why play the system? To show off your brilliance in a game?

[Kane0]

In the meat world, the people I know who like nuts and bolts prefer PF. The people who don't like all that mechanical stuff prefer Dungeon World or FATE. 5E seems to occupy the middle ground. My PFers don't like it more than DW or FATE and my DW/FATE crew don't hate it the way that they hate "Mathfinder".

I would see more if all the FLGS in my area hadn't died off like flies

I've slowly been winning over the PF group one by one to 5e, ironically I think the PF2 playtest did to them what 4e did to many 3.5 players.

[FilthyLucre]

IMO 5e absolutely does lack for crunch/options. The only reason I play it over 3.5 is because of bounded accuracy.

[Morty]

When it comes to comparing flexibility, I think it's worthwhile to take a look at 5E's core rules versus 3E's core rules, without taking supplementary materials into account. I think 5E is actually more flexible if you just take the basic books. There's some concepts you can't realize in 3E without splatbooks but that are plug and play in 5E.

[MoiMagnus]

When it comes to comparing flexibility, I think it's worthwhile to take a look at 5E's core rules versus 3E's core rules, without taking supplementary materials into account. I think 5E is actually more flexible if you just take the basic books. There's some concepts you can't realize in 3E without splatbooks but that are plug and play in 5E.

I feel like it kind of depends on when do you consider a character concept is realized in a system.

Is it when you manage to build a character that mostly behave as what the character concept should, or is it when the system is precise enough to make your character concept be mechanically different from other character concepts that are similar?

As a simple example, we can take "forbidden school" from the wizard from 3e. You can build a 5e Wizard that does not take any spell of a certain school for background reasons, but does that count as the character concept of "a wizard that cannot cast spells of school X" as realized?

[Great Dragon]

IMO 5e absolutely does lack for crunch/options.
The only reason I play it over 3.5 is because of bounded accuracy.

Personally, I don't play D&D to be The Guy at the Gym (but that's another Rant)

I'm still not 100% sold on Bounded Accuracy.
Sure, it's great for 'regular' play. And spells aren't overwhelming because of it.

But honestly, adding any magical weapons/armor into the game automatically breaks Bounded Accuracy.

But then, I don't really see that big a deal that the Base CR 1/8 monster (or 1st level NPC) can't hit the 17+ level PC/s. By the time the PC/s are in Fourth Tier, things from Tier One shouldn't even be on their Radar as something to worry about. It's nice that those poor Newby PC/s still have a 10% chance of not insta-dying from the (Evil) Mage King's Death Ray - but really why are those Newbies anywhere near the 20th level BBEG anyway?

That said, I do like 5e - while more 'Good' options from past Editions could have been included and fewer 'Bad' options could have been dropped (I sometimes wonder if any of the Devs actually play the game) 5e is a great Gateway for getting more New Players into the game. And like it or not, us Grognards need to recognize that we need more Newbies, for the Game to survive.

But, I still like 3x D&D, although I'm going to bring some of the 5e stuff back into it, if I ever DM it again.

5e Backgrounds with Traits/Ideals/Bonds/Flaws.

All the different Tieflings and Aasimar.

Figuring out what Class or Prestige Class a 5e Archetype/Subclass is - could be fun.

[Morty]

I feel like it kind of depends on when do you consider a character concept is realized in a system.

Is it when you manage to build a character that mostly behave as what the character concept should, or is it when the system is precise enough to make your character concept be mechanically different from other character concepts that are similar?

As a simple example, we can take "forbidden school" from the wizard from 3e. You can build a 5e Wizard that does not take any spell of a certain school for background reasons, but does that count as the character concept of "a wizard that cannot cast spells of school X" as realized?

I'm talking about things like gishes, dual-wielding characters, finesse fighters that aren't rogues or archers, who are weak, borderline unplayable or just straight-up unplayable in core 3E, but at least somewhat viable in 5E.

[Rolero]

I think one of the first answers nailed it: because elitism. There is a lot of players out there that enjoy the complexity and power-gaming that D&D3,5 (and by extension Pathfinder) offers. And, frequently, DM's have to adapt to that mentality to give them a proper challenge. However, to the not munchkin players or those who come from a different edition this may not be fun. So, one of the typical approaches I've seen is that elite attitude towards the newcomers, patronazing them because they come from an "easier" game.

However, I remember my days playing 2nd edition, and it was much more like 5th edition than the mathematical nighmare 3ed edition can be with all its micro-management.

Another statement I hear a lot about the latest iteration of the game is that it doesn't offer a lot of customization. To those people I say, you are only limited by your imagination not the options of your class. Also, 5th edition already has a good variaty of races, classes, backgrounds and progression available, even with only PH.

Finally, I may get were the criticism comes from. Once you get used to D&D5e it can be a bit daunting to go back and play in a more complex system. I am currently DMing a 5e game, but also playing another in Pathfinder, and let me tell you, I am enjoying the last edition of D&D a lot more than the works of Paizo. Everything has a rule, a modifier or specific nuance that constantly stops the game or make it complex for the shake of being complex and it is a bit stressful sometimes.

So, long story short, I think both games are really good, but both have a very different public for its player demographic. Hence, the elitism you see when an oldschooler gets a newbie on his game that may slow him down when doing his munchkin shenanigans.

[Max_Killjoy]

I feel like it kind of depends on when do you consider a character concept is realized in a system.

Is it when you manage to build a character that mostly behave as what the character concept should, or is it when the system is precise enough to make your character concept be mechanically different from other character concepts that are similar?

As a simple example, we can take "forbidden school" from the wizard from 3e. You can build a 5e Wizard that does not take any spell of a certain school for background reasons, but does that count as the character concept of "a wizard that cannot cast spells of school X" as realized?

I'm talking about things like gishes, dual-wielding characters, finesse fighters that aren't rogues or archers, who are weak, borderline unplayable or just straight-up unplayable in core 3E, but at least somewhat viable in 5E.

Any concept that doesn't involve starting out small and then steep progression towards much greater power... immediately falls down.

Any concept that involves a specific ability that's locked behind several levels of progression through a class granting abilities that don't fir the character... immediately falls down.

And in 5e (I honestly don't recall this detail for 3.x any more), any concept for a character who is skill and/or knowledge based, but isn't a sneak or an entertainer... immediately falls down.

Another statement I hear a lot about the latest iteration of the game is that it doesn't offer a lot of customization. To those people I say, you are only limited by your imagination not the options of your class. Also, 5th edition already has a good variaty of races, classes, backgrounds and progression available, even with only PH.

Part of this comes down to the endless and unsolvable dispute between "character class as a codification of archetype" vs "character class as a tool in a toolkit for translating a character into the system". 5e is a lot more customizable if you're allowed to ignore or rewrite the "fluff" for a Class -- Warlock is a really versatile tool if you just ignore the "fluff" of a Patron and granted powers, and just use the mechanics to model things... but if you're bound by the "fluff", it's not very versatile at all in the context at hand.

[Great Dragon]

I think one of the first answers nailed it: because elitism. {Snip} Hence, the elitism you see when an oldschooler gets a newbie on his game that may slow him down when doing his munchkin shenanigans.

From what I've seen on a lot of places on the net is the "Power/DPR" and "Super Defense" or "Niche Class" people complianing that they don't have the ability to recreate their Favorite PC to be just as 'broken' or "break the DM's Game".

But, then I've kinda become a bit of a meenie to "Elitist" and "Power" Players as a DM, pretty much as far back as 2e.

I tend to prefer a "Balanced" Game, where neither Crunch or Fluff dominate, but are blended together.

Doing a "Munchkin" Game (optimized PCs aren't the problem, it's the "me first" and "I'm Supierior" attitudes) can be fun, but only if everyone is on board.

[diplomancer]

And in 5e (I honestly don't recall this detail for 3.x any more), any concept for a character who is skill and/or knowledge based, but isn't a sneak or an entertainer... immediately falls down.

Knowledge Cleric. There are many words to describe a flamboyant swashbuckler or a strength rogue, but sneak isn't one of them. Likewise, there are many words to describe a Dragonborn Valor Bard, but "entertainer" isn't one of them.

(Oh, and the Prodigy feat from Xanathar's, and, if your DM allows UA, the skill feats too)

[EggKookoo]

And like it or not, us Grognards need to recognize that we need more Newbies, for the Game to survive.

That moment I realize someone who came to D&D with 3e can be called a "grognard."

[Morty]

Any concept that doesn't involve starting out small and then steep progression towards much greater power... immediately falls down.

Any concept that involves a specific ability that's locked behind several levels of progression through a class granting abilities that don't fir the character... immediately falls down.

And in 5e (I honestly don't recall this detail for 3.x any more), any concept for a character who is skill and/or knowledge based, but isn't a sneak or an entertainer... immediately falls down.

I'm not going to argue that 5E is varied, just that 3E's variety is overstated and reliant on the sheer volume of material. And some of the concepts that require splat-diving are fairly basic.

[EggKookoo]

I'm not going to argue that 5E is varied, just that 3E's variety is overstated and reliant on the sheer volume of material. And some of the concepts that require splat-diving are fairly basic.

There's also a thing about expectations. If I ask for a concept you realized to your satisfaction in 3e, and I tried to realize it for you with 5e, you may well decide I failed because you're used to the specific ways 3e's mechanics did something and have bound that up with the concept itself.

I can think of a number of ways to make a skill-based build in 5e but it won't play at all like a skill-based build from 3e.