Speculation 3.P to 5.0 Why should I make the switch? [Archive]

DirePorkChop

2016-07-15, 09:35 AM

fishyfishyfishy

2016-07-15, 09:45 AM

You can find arguments one way or the other all over the Internet with a bit of research. Countless people have broken down the game and discussed the strong and weak points. You don't need us to make up your mind for you, nor would any discussion be productive towards convincing you. Especially without understanding your expectations and goals in gaming. The only way to truly get a feel for this game and find out if you actually enjoy it is to give it an honest try and play in or run a short adventure.

smcmike

2016-07-15, 09:49 AM

Cybren

2016-07-15, 09:50 AM

It seemed to me that 5 was just the mentally challenged love child of 3.5 and 4.0, and it crushed my spirit into infinite little flakes.
Ignoring that this is a pejorative directed at people that enjoy 5E, which honestly is unimportant because people are entitled to their tastes, it's a very insensitive comment with respect to people with developmental and intellectual disabilities.

Blarmb

2016-07-15, 09:51 AM

If you want your rules to be more flexible, the mechanics to be simplified with fewer moving parts, and a lower emphasis on system mastery 5e might be worth another go.
If you want your rules to be more granular, clearly defined and enjoy system mastery is probably not your cup of tea.

You can see the disconnect between the two camps in threads on the front page like "Rules of Unclear Agency". While 5e is rules heavy in comparison to most games in contrast to something like 3.P it's really more a framework. If you want rules that always give you a "correct" solution and attempt to make things objectively "fair" for "Team DM" vs "Team Player", stick with 3.P. If you want a set of rules that sometimes just sort of says "Here's the general way you go about finding a solution, figure out the specifics on your own" 5e is up your alley.

I think this quote from the thread mentioned above sums things up perfectly: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20996163&postcount=26

And don't think for a second you're pulling the wool over your players' eyes. When you change the rules of them, or do something just to keep things "challenging," they know damn well what you're doing. And nine times out of ten, they don't appreciate it.

Rules are there to protect and empower the players, not to be interpreted by the DM.

If you as a DM view the rule as something that need to be there to protect the players from you, you'll struggle with making 5e work the way you want.
If you as a player, view the DM as something you need the rules to protect you from you'll struggle to find 5e games that feel right.

Put another way is the DM the Programmer or the CPU? 5e says the former, 3.P the latter.

Christian

2016-07-15, 10:04 AM

There are only two really good reasons to switch: (1) It's the current edition, so it's easier to find players and groups and get WOTC and third-party support products, and (2) because you have fun when you play it. (1) is absolutely, totally, and inarguably true. (2) is something nobody can tell you--you just have to give it a try. All I can say is, there are lots of people having a lot of fun playing 5E games; and it's a whole lot more like 3E than 4E, so if you enjoyed 3E, and you go in with an open mind and give it a fair shot, there's a good chance you'll find it's got some upsides. It's definitely a simpler game that relies less on detailed rulesets and more on DM rulings and creativity. That's not necessarily a bad thing--a lot of us OD&D/1E grognards felt 3E robbed a lot of the charm of the game by explicitly laying so many things out. (Don't ask what we thought 4E did to that aspect. :smallsmile: )

There are people who gave it a fair try and decided they really don't like it, too. But hey, de gustibus non disputandum.

Socratov

2016-07-15, 10:09 AM

Hello Playground!

I am a long term 3.5/ 3.P player, and I was thinking about giving 5.0 another try. See, I was ecstatic about 5th when it was announced, starry eyed with wonder when it was released, and absolutely heartbroken when I played it for the first/ only time on RPG game day at the LGS. It seemed to me that 5 was just the mentally challenged love child of 3.5 and 4.0, and it crushed my spirit into infinite little flakes. The old wounds left by 4th edition were re-opened. In response, I banished the books to the furthest reaches of my library along with it's disappointing twin brother, 4th edition. I Just chalked it up to WizBro draining my pocket for a hundred and fifty bucks.

The other day, I saw the PHB and the DMG on my bookshelf and my thoughts drifted back to that fateful day and as they say, time heals all wounds. I would like to give it another shot, and go into it with no preconceived notions of what to expect.

My question for the playground is this: Who here has made the transition from an older version of the game, and what do you prefer in 5.0 vice the older editions. Any help would be appreciated.

Also, know that I am not condemning 5th edition in the least (okay, maybe a little), and that I am willing to give it another shot (which is something very hard for a grognard to do. It took me 8 years to switch from AD&D to 3.5, and that was only because I could not find an AD&D group to play with). Just curious to see what, if anything, people have to say about it.

To Simplify: Redeeming qualities of 5th; comparable mechanics/ rules between editions; thoughts of those who have switched.

My appreciation to the Ground.

I have.

To ask why make the switch I need to know why you like 3.5.

For me that was the difference in classes and abilities, the overabundance of flavour. Things I could do without is a great gap between tier1 classes and the rest. Also, its countless modifiers to either side can make combat turn almost into a negotiation with the DM before turning it into a game of accountancy.

This is where 5e comes in: it streamlines play, yet has lots of different and flavourful options, which are not as close in power like 4th, but definitely closer in power then 3.5. The martial classes stay relevant and while the casters have lost quite a lot of their direct power, they are still interesting to use. Play has sped up with fewer actions and less time used per action and more intuitive rules. That said, 5e sets the DM-player balance of power at the DM end so if done wrong it can resemble a game of Mother-may-I, where 3.5 has more detailed description of what the players can do, 5th edition is more vague and refers judgement to the DM. 5e, however, makes every enemy relevant to the game, and not just those within the CR bracket.

Though ultimately it all comes down to having fun and your friends (the ones you play with). They make the game fun or not

Toadkiller

2016-07-15, 10:13 AM

So, as several have said already, this is a pointless question to ask here. The only answer is "cause you want to". If you don't want to, don't. If you do, then give it another try.

It's a set of rules. In some ways it is smoother than 3.X. In some ways it is narrower and less rich. Happily, we live in a time with a solid D&D edition that's "official" and an active rich legacy edition in the form of Pathfinder. Leaving aside the myriad other RPG systems out there. Lots of options in active development.

WickerNipple

2016-07-15, 12:51 PM

See, I was ecstatic about 5th when it was announced, starry eyed with wonder when it was released, and absolutely heartbroken when I played it for the first/ only time on RPG game day at the LGS. It seemed to me that 5 was just the mentally challenged love child of 3.5 and 4.0, and it crushed my spirit into infinite little flakes.

I think you might be wrapped a bit too tight for this game if your soul is crushed that easily.

hymer

2016-07-15, 01:27 PM

From my perspective, coming from 3.5, these are the most noticeable bonuses:

1: Classes are not so far from each other in terms of power and versatility, and yet you don't feel utterly sabotaged playing a druid. There are still deadish levels to be found (but you get at least a ribbon), but nowhere near the degree it was in 3.X.

2: Backgrounds are incorporated simply and effectively into character creation.

3: Far fewer trap options. In order to screw up a character build, you almost have to work at it.

4: Far fewer fiddly bonuses to keep track of. I like fiddly bonuses a lot in theory, but above a certain level of them gets annoying in practice.

5: Combat flows far better at mid and high levels. This is partly because of the above-mentioned lack of fiddly bits, partly because efforts have been made to simplify stat blocks and streamline combat options, and partly because Concentration keeps buff-stacking down to a more manageable level.

6: PCs and NPCs no longer use the same build rules. So NPCs can do what the DM wants and needs them to do, without requiring you to master the system and search high and low to make it so - all the more so at high level. All you need is to find out what the CR ends up being, which is easy in most cases.

For dissatisfactions, they're generally minor, except for one thing: I don't like the skill system. Bounded accuracy has lead to the die having more power over success and failure than the skill and talent of the character in general. In addition, there's very little sense of what exactly you can accomplish with skills, or what DCs you would expect to need to do so.

GoodbyeSoberDay

2016-07-15, 02:22 PM

Why should you make the switch, when you've already made the intellectual investment into 3.P such that its flaws are far less significant than they would be for a new player?

Same reason I did; go where the games are. Now, why shouldn't your soul be crushed? Three reasons.

(1) The people at the table are more important than the game system. I've had fun with systems I personally dislike, with a good group, and I've hated my favorite systems with a bad group.
(2) 5e is far more similar to 3e than 4e in practice. Yes, there are plenty of 4e elements, but both the more central and the more frustrating elements of that edition weren't ported over. For instance, while rituals in 4e were good idea ruined by terrible execution, rituals in 5e are one its most elegant mechanics, in both concept and execution, a couple minor bugs notwithstanding.
(3) So long as you nab a good GM, you're not the one dealing with the major drawbacks of the system. Your GM is*. You'll miss the wide swath of player options available in 3.P, but there is still some novelty in the new system without those options for a while.

*Yes, yes, some GMs prefer a "just wing it" system, despite its drawbacks, and even some of those GMs are actually good at winging it. All the better to keep them in the seat.

the secret fire

2016-07-15, 02:59 PM

You should switch because 5.0 is basically a more streamlined version of 3rd edition with much better balance and much less room for rampant munchkinism.

The aforementioned problem with the skills system leading to much too swingy results where the 1d20 is more important than the training is the only big gripe I have, but implementing a fix of that system is much easier than plugging the thousand holes in the dam that was 3.5.

5th edition hits the sweet spot between simple and complex. It is noob friendly without a lot of trap options, but it also rewards system mastery and a clear understanding of synergies. Seriously, it's a really good system. I played a lot of 3.5/Pathfinder, and my house rules for each system grew to several pages each over the years. For 5th edition, my house rules fit on a single flash card.

DirePorkChop

2016-07-15, 03:03 PM

Re: 3.P to 5.0 Why should I make the switch?
You can find arguments one way or the other all over the Internet with a bit of research. Countless people have broken down the game and discussed the strong and weak points. You don't need us to make up your mind for you, nor would any discussion be productive towards convincing you. Especially without understanding your expectations and goals in gaming. The only way to truly get a feel for this game and find out if you actually enjoy it is to give it an honest try and play in or run a short adventure.

Thanks for your help. Bless your heart.

Re: 3.P to 5.0 Why should I make the switch?
1. Simplicity. I like 3.5 ok, but I don't have the energy for it. There aren't any real traps to avoid in character creation in 5e: if you want to be good at something, you really can just pick the class that's supposed to be good at it and play. At the table there's less to keep track of too: I hate the Christmas tree effect of 3.5 magic items.

2. Balance. 3.5's balance problems were overblown, from my perspective, mostly the product of character optimization on the Internet, rather than actual play. Still, 5e is easier to balance between classes.

3. Fun: compared with the CORE 3.5 classes, I think most of the 5e classes are just more fun. They have more abilities, and those abilities do more of what I want them to do, across the board. If you've got a full 3.5 library and good system mastery, this probably swings the other way, but if you are comparing the 3.5 monk to the 5e monk, it's an easy choice.

This was what I was looking for. The truth is that 3.5 has kind of lost it's luster, particularly because I play in an optimized group. Not necessarily Pun Pun, but optimized, and it makes for a significantly unbalanced play experience. Thank you.

It seemed to me that 5 was just the mentally challenged love child of 3.5 and 4.0, and it crushed my spirit into infinite little flakes.
Ignoring that this is a pejorative directed at people that enjoy 5E, which honestly is unimportant because people are entitled to their tastes, it's a very insensitive comment with respect to people with developmental and intellectual disabilities.

I apologize. I did not mean to afflict your tender sensibilities. I will refrain from using such language in the future.

If you want your rules to be more flexible, the mechanics to be simplified with fewer moving parts, and a lower emphasis on system mastery 5e might be worth another go.
If you want your rules to be more granular, clearly defined and enjoy system mastery is probably not your cup of tea.

You can see the disconnect between the two camps in threads on the front page like "Rules of Unclear Agency". While 5e is rules heavy in comparison to most games in contrast to something like 3.P it's really more a framework. If you want rules that always give you a "correct" solution and attempt to make things objectively "fair" for "Team DM" vs "Team Player", stick with 3.P. If you want a set of rules that sometimes just sort of says "Here's the general way you go about finding a solution, figure out the specifics on your own" 5e is up your alley.

I think this quote from the thread mentioned above sums things up perfectly:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...3&postcount=26

And don't think for a second you're pulling the wool over your players' eyes. When you change the rules of them, or do something just to keep things "challenging," they know damn well what you're doing. And nine times out of ten, they don't appreciate it.

Rules are there to protect and empower the players, not to be interpreted by the DM. If you as a DM view the rule as something that need to be there to protect the players from you, you'll struggle with making 5e work the way you want.
If you as a player, view the DM as something you need the rules to protect you from you'll struggle to find 5e games that feel right.

Put another way is the DM the Programmer or the CPU? 5e says the former, 3.P the latter.

This is a very interesting way of interpreting the difference between the systems. This was so helpful. I may actually decide to run a campaign rather than play in one now.

There are only two really good reasons to switch: (1) It's the current edition, so it's easier to find players and groups and get WOTC and third-party support products, and (2) because you have fun when you play it. (1) is absolutely, totally, and inarguably true. (2) is something nobody can tell you--you just have to give it a try. All I can say is, there are lots of people having a lot of fun playing 5E games; and it's a whole lot more like 3E than 4E, so if you enjoyed 3E, and you go in with an open mind and give it a fair shot, there's a good chance you'll find it's got some upsides. It's definitely a simpler game that relies less on detailed rulesets and more on DM rulings and creativity. That's not necessarily a bad thing--a lot of us OD&D/1E grognards felt 3E robbed a lot of the charm of the game by explicitly laying so many things out. (Don't ask what we thought 4E did to that aspect. )

There are people who gave it a fair try and decided they really don't like it, too. But hey, de gustibus non disputandum.

Thank you for the honest answer. The thing is, I want to move to a newer system simply because they are putting new/ refreshed content out. As I said before, 3.P is getting kind of stale even with all of the bells and whistles from Paizo. This helps considerably.

I have.

To ask why make the switch I need to know why you like 3.5.

For me that was the difference in classes and abilities, the overabundance of flavour. Things I could do without is a great gap between tier1 classes and the rest. Also, its countless modifiers to either side can make combat turn almost into a negotiation with the DM before turning it into a game of accountancy.

This is where 5e comes in: it streamlines play, yet has lots of different and flavourful options, which are not as close in power like 4th, but definitely closer in power then 3.5. The martial classes stay relevant and while the casters have lost quite a lot of their direct power, they are still interesting to use. Play has sped up with fewer actions and less time used per action and more intuitive rules. That said, 5e sets the DM-player balance of power at the DM end so if done wrong it can resemble a game of Mother-may-I, where 3.5 has more detailed description of what the players can do, 5th edition is more vague and refers judgement to the DM. 5e, however, makes every enemy relevant to the game, and not just those within the CR bracket.

Though ultimately it all comes down to having fun and your friends (the ones you play with). They make the game fun or not

This is what I was hoping to hear. It would make sense that the GM at the LGS would not have much system knowledge. Particularly if it is a brand new system. This is golden in my eyes, because I grow tired of 3 hour long combats in 3.P. Thank you so much.

I know I did not get to everyone, and I apologize for my insensitive comments pertaining to the mentally disabled. I was sold at "streamlined and reduced combat time. I think that I have thoroughly succeeded at my Gather Information check, although it took a few rolls. Thank you all. I am definitely going to give 5.0 another try. I will probably run the game, to try and keep it clipping a a decent pace.

Zman

2016-07-15, 03:21 PM

3.P has a metric ton of content, unfortunately much of that content is of dubious quality and rife with abuse and optimization abuse to the point many characters are not playing the same game. If the 3.5 Tier system bothers you and you don't feel like Tier 1s should be playing the same game with Tier 5s, then you'll like that 5e classes are all effectively Tier 3-4.

Compared to 3.P, 5e is streamlined, efficient, balanced, and that means for playability. If 3.P's endless material, fiddly rules, and optimization that attracts you, 5e isn't for you. Also, 3.P has endlessly scaling numbers whereas 5e uses bounded accuracy. In 3.P numbers always grew and grew quickly and you had assumed levels of magic items required for them to grow at that pace. AC 18 in 3.P starts good and rapidly becomes terrible. In 5e the numbers do not swell so fast and are bounded, AC18 is great at 1st level and still good later in the game. A Fighter in 3.P might Start with a +5 to hit and ends with a +26 to hit without magic items whereas a Fighter in 5e starts with a +5 to Hit and ends the game with a +11. One amazing side effect of bounded accuracy is that low level enemies scale much better in the game and are still usable far longer in the game as viable enemies something that really wasn't the case in 3.5 E. By 10th level if you wanted to use Orcs in 3.P they had to be leveled characters and all of a sudden every Orc was a lvl 8 Warrior, well in 5e regular Orcs can still hit you, and might even take more than one hit to kill, what changes is that now it takes more of them to threaten you and they are still a threat, but the numbers used and the feel they create makes sense and is much better for verisimilitude and immersion IMO. Another fun aspect of 5e is that levels are less drastic, for instance in 3.P if you have a lvl 5 character tagging along with a level 10 party it feels wrong and the lvl 5 character is terrible, in 5e the 5th level character will most certainly be a meaningful member of the party and be able to contribute. One other aspect of 5e that is personally great is that Magic items are not required for the game to function, far few of them need to be used, and magic items feel much more special. In 3.P you are constantly tossing aside and selling your last magic sword to buy the one with the next +, but in 5e any magic sword feels special and a +1 Sword makes a significant difference and is useable for most of your career. Also, concentration means that spellcasters often can only have one of their most potent spells active at a time and cannot buff stack. Linear Fighters/Quadratic Wizards is much much less of a problem in 5e than 3.P.

From the player side 5e is easy to learn and play, and on the DM side 5e is a breeze to DM where 3.P was an absolute chore. I mean just the volume of information you had to cover as a DM in 3.P during character creation was a nightmare and despite that wealth of resources there were very few good choices and many simply would put your character behind the optimization curve. In 5e at 1s-3rd t level with Race, Backgrounds, and Sublclasses characters really feel different and offers much more viable customization than even 3.P with many times the amount of available material.

Crafty Cultist

2016-07-15, 04:29 PM

I'm someone who loves 3.5 and hates 4e with a passion, and my experiences with 5e have been interesting and enjoyable so far.

The biggest missteps of 4e, at least in my opinion, was that the classes felt to much like they belonged in an MMO. They were flavored differently, but it all just broke down to Tank, Striker, Crowd control, and Support. In 5e though, the classes feel distinct. Magic and weapon combat feel distinct from each other, and the encounter/daily system of 4e in updated into the long rest/short rest mechanic.

It's a lot simpler than 3.5, as well, even discounting the amount of content available. Multiclassing is streamlined enough to be exactly what it's supposed to be - a trade of power for versatility - and there's no need to dip levels for a build. The reduced scaling is also nice, as it keeps mooks significant. Even a high level character can have trouble with goblins if they attack in force. You still get all the cool high level stuff, but it's a bit closer to E6 in terms of balance.

So yeah, I think 5e is worth giving a shot. It doesn't have the same wealth of content that 3.5 has yet, but it also doesn't have MAD paladins and monks, a colossal gulf between martials and casters, or anything resembling truenamers (ugh). And it's a whole lot easier on new players. If you have people interested in trying a game, it's a whole lot easier to wade through than 3.5.

Grappling rules are still confusing though. But when are they not:smallwink:

TheProfessor85

2016-07-15, 04:39 PM

A bit late to the party, but I find 5ed's flow closer to of ad&d. Less skills andmore focus on stats. Magic items are similar between the two versions as well. IMO anyway

Specter

2016-07-15, 05:20 PM

1. Simplicity. I like 3.5 ok, but I don't have the energy for it. There aren't any real traps to avoid in character creation in 5e: if you want to be good at something, you really can just pick the class that's supposed to be good at it and play. At the table there's less to keep track of too: I hate the Christmas tree effect of 3.5 magic items.

2. Balance. 3.5's balance problems were overblown, from my perspective, mostly the product of character optimization on the Internet, rather than actual play. Still, 5e is easier to balance between classes.

3. Fun: compared with the CORE 3.5 classes, I think most of the 5e classes are just more fun. They have more abilities, and those abilities do more of what I want them to do, across the board. If you've got a full 3.5 library and good system mastery, this probably swings the other way, but if you are comparing the 3.5 monk to the 5e monk, it's an easy choice.

This. With some more advice:

1) Be careful that if you don't create some sort of magic item market, gold should be a lot less useful than it was in 3.5.

2) Casters are still creating dimensions and avoiding death and such and such, but now basically a 20th-level Fighter can go against a 20th-cleric.

3) I haven't seen anybody that played 5e and didn't have fun. Even my old 3.5 guys who pretend to hate it are always looking forward to it!

ZZTRaider

2016-07-15, 06:02 PM

For some context, I started playing tabletop RPGs with Pathfinder. It's still what I end up playing the most, but that's largely because I haven't convinced the rest of my primary group to give it a try yet. (They're still caught up in the whole sunk cost fallacy, "I've already spent so much on Pathfinder!")

From what experience I have with 5E, I vastly prefer it to Pathfinder. Here are some of my thoughts on it:

You don't end up with a billion fiddly +1s and -1s just because you have a buffer in the group.
The game doesn't expect you to be decked out in magical items. That leads to the Magic Mart not being a thing, which in turn means your gold can go to other things. Sure, there's not a ton to spend money on that is mechanically useful, but that lets you drop cash on roleplay-centric things without essentially disadvantaging yourself.
Levels 1 and 2 seem to essentially be an "initiate" phase; you're not really a professional of your class, yet. From a versimilitude perspective, this is great because it means all of those people that would be level 1 and 2 in the world are sensibly lower powered without needing NPC classes.
Once you reach level 3, you can really feel like you've hit your concept. My favorite example is the Assassin subclass. In Pathfinder, it's nearly impossible to get a solid assassin feel for a character that can work alone. By the time you can pull it off, you're high level and HP has inflated to the point where you can't easily assassinate anything that isn't significantly weaker than you. Gameplay as a solo Assassin in 5E actually feels like you're a competent assassin.
I think ritual casting is a great compromise between spells that ought to be higher level but often aren't worth an actual spell slot. In particular, making players choose between spending a slot or extra time to cast Detect Magic seems to go a long way toward avoiding people wandering around with it up all the time. Similarly, it gets rid of some of Pathfinder's oddities where a Paladin can Detect Magic, but is severely limited in doing so compared to a Cleric since Paladins do not get cantrips.
Combat is so much simpler and goes so much faster, leaving more session time for actual roleplay.
Leveling is also really quick. Mid-session leveling is completely viable, whereas I've always relegated it to purely between sessions of Pathfinder, just because it tends to take so long -- especially for those with less system mastery that need to read over all of the feats and spells every time.

Vogonjeltz

2016-07-15, 06:18 PM

Hello Playground!

I am a long term 3.5/ 3.P player, and I was thinking about giving 5.0 another try. See, I was ecstatic about 5th when it was announced, starry eyed with wonder when it was released, and absolutely heartbroken when I played it for the first/ only time on RPG game day at the LGS. It seemed to me that 5 was just the mentally challenged love child of 3.5 and 4.0, and it crushed my spirit into infinite little flakes. The old wounds left by 4th edition were re-opened. In response, I banished the books to the furthest reaches of my library along with it's disappointing twin brother, 4th edition. I Just chalked it up to WizBro draining my pocket for a hundred and fifty bucks.

The other day, I saw the PHB and the DMG on my bookshelf and my thoughts drifted back to that fateful day and as they say, time heals all wounds. I would like to give it another shot, and go into it with no preconceived notions of what to expect.

My question for the playground is this: Who here has made the transition from an older version of the game, and what do you prefer in 5.0 vice the older editions. Any help would be appreciated.

Also, know that I am not condemning 5th edition in the least (okay, maybe a little), and that I am willing to give it another shot (which is something very hard for a grognard to do. It took me 8 years to switch from AD&D to 3.5, and that was only because I could not find an AD&D group to play with). Just curious to see what, if anything, people have to say about it.

To Simplify: Redeeming qualities of 5th; comparable mechanics/ rules between editions; thoughts of those who have switched.

My appreciation to the Ground.

I imagine virtually everyone played a prior version as well. If you disliked 5th I don't know why you would have changed your mind in between now and then.

That being said, I played Advanced, then 3.0, then 3.5, saw 4th and had a visceral reaction to the system as it was all too similar to the mechanics of World of Warcraft (I also had a visceral dislike of the artwork). Because of the bad taste that 4th left with me, I was immensely skeptical of D&D Next as 5th ed used to be called.

However, having played 5th, I would never go back to 3.x, ever. 5th smoothes and streamlines the game, doing away with all the fiddly modifiers that slowed down combat and made the game more of chore and less of a joy. It really puts into stark relief all the serious flaws that 3x had, when you no longer have to put up with them (combat, skill system, etc...)

Blarmb

2016-07-15, 06:52 PM

I imagine virtually everyone played a prior version as well. If you disliked 5th I don't know why you would have changed your mind in between now and then.

That being said, I played Advanced, then 3.0, then 3.5, saw 4th and had a visceral reaction to the system as it was all too similar to the mechanics of World of Warcraft (I also had a visceral dislike of the artwork). Because of the bad taste that 4th left with me, I was immensely skeptical of D&D Next as 5th ed used to be called.

Why does everyone say this? I've played a ton of World of Warcraft and 4es mechanics are nothing like it or any other video game I've played for that matter. The only thing they share in common is a rather superficial similarity in the way they codify class roles.

4e has no concept of a rotation.
4e has healing is carefully metered resource.
4e has class abilities that are bound & limited outside the context of a single relevant encounter.
4e has non-boss encounters that are relevant as something other than filler content.
4e has a huge emphasis on movement & placement, ranges.
4e has no meaningful threat mechanics. (marks operate nothing like MMO threat or taunts)
4e has limited role variability within classes.
4e largely lacks secondaries, power modifications and buff interactions.
4e classes share very similar "templates" to their ability structures (something only true of wow in later years, well after 4e came out and hardly to the same degree)

I'm genuinely curious as to what the similarities people see are. To me a much better analogue for 4e is small-scale tabletop skirmish game.

Cybren

2016-07-15, 07:00 PM

Blarmb

2016-07-15, 07:11 PM

It's an aesthetic judgement, not a mechanical one- 4Es presentation and design evokes an MMORPG but does not emulate one, and it's kind of pointlessly obstinate to refuse that- it objectively sorts all the classes into damage/tank/control/support (which we get from everquest, by way of DikuMUD), uses a lot of abilities that have very gamist functions that don't present a clear picture of having any diagetic meaning(why can't this spell light these things on fire? Why can I only teleport as part of an attack and not just to move around? etc), and even gives an aesthetic marker of what 'power source' the classes have, while not allowing that to influence gameplay.

This is hardly unique to MMOs though. Many, many types of games have strictly mechanical constructs (why can't my monopoly car drive turn around and drive backwards?). The class role labels are literally the only thing (I can see) that can uniquely draw a comparison to MMOs generally or WoW specifically, that you can't draw to any number of other games be they tabletop war games, or video games. Roles that arguably trace their lineage back to TTRPGs in the first place.

It's one thing to say "It's gamey". To say it's "too much like world of warcraft" specifically calls out the design of a specific game, with specific systems and a very specific way of being gamey. Hell you can use your teleport just to move around in World of Warcraft.

Cybren

2016-07-15, 07:21 PM

Mrc.

2016-07-15, 07:34 PM

Another point that I didn't notice whilst reading is the way lair bosses are done. By having the scenery (for lack of a better word) feel like it's contributing to the overall atmosphere and making the prospect of facing a dragon in its lair so much more terrifying than anywhere else they begin to seem like greater threats, which is kind of the point.

EDIT: Also, it's a much better system for adding in stuff from 3.P than 4E was: it's not a perfect transition but it's way smoother. Not tried converting from 4E to 5E but I doubt it'll be too easy.

Blarmb

2016-07-15, 07:35 PM

Those roles, in name, trace their origins to D&D. In execution, the idea of 'tanking' was created with DikuMUD, and then emulated in everquest and WOW. All of these games did so via threat management, but that being a cumbersome execution in pen and paper, 4E opted for 'marking. Certainly in previous versions of D&D you had ways of encouraging people to attack you, but those were almost all based on positioning. Codifying it via abstract game mechanics is an MMO concept.

When people say "world of warcraft" they mean "too much like an MMO", and 4E was very intentionally aesthetically similar to MMOs. Most people aren't experienced enough in computer games to not know that wow was emulating a preexisting gameplay model, so they just refer to their particular frame of reference.

The bolded predates MMOs, at least in the video game space.Off the top of my head I think to a childhood favorite Final Fantasy (released 1987) allowed you to control who was attacked by assigning party slots. Your second party member was 1/2 as likely to be attacked as your first, your third half as much again and so on. This was strictly an abstract game mechanic used to make your higher HP and higher armor party members tank. It predates Evequest by 12 years and DikuMud (never heard of it so taking your word on this) by 3, according to google. If we're to say the comparison holds outside strict threat mechanics, than it holds for things that predate those threat mechanics but still used abstracts to control combat flow.

I'm sure I could trace such mechanics even earlier if I tried. I guess it's reasonable to say if folks have only ever heard of tanking in an MMO and have never touched one they'll snap-fit based on that. Still if that's true it's an extremely broad and strong statement made from weak assumption. I'd like to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they're really seeing a more substantive connection that I'm just missing.

Cybren

2016-07-15, 07:52 PM

Blarmb

2016-07-15, 08:17 PM

1) that is a passive game mechanic modelling the marching order concept from tabletop RPGs
2) both 4th edition's marking and DikuMUDS threat/Everquest & WoWs taunt mechanics are active, not passive.

See previously: pointlessly obstinate. 4th edition was intentionally designed to have an aesthetic similarity to MMORPGs.

You've now moved the standard from"abstract game mechanic" in the post I quoted to "active mechanic". In any case since your claim was it was an intentional design decision it should be easy enough to produce from the horses mouth. I'm not overly familiar with the 4e development cycle, but a quick google found this interview with the lead designer being specifically posed a question on how it compares to World of Warcraft among other things: http://guyslitwire.blogspot.com/2008/06/interview-rob-heinsoo-lead-designer-of.html

Compared to earlier editions, Fourth Edition will seem a bit more familiar to people who know trading card games. In a sense, Fourth Edition is an exceptions-based game like most TCGs. The actual key rules required to play Fourth Edition occupy around 20 pages in Chapter 9 of the Player’s Handbook. The rest of the stuff in that book are all the cool exceptions that you get to choose from as a player to build your character, the powers that make your character different from other characters, that control what you can do in the world against enemies who are trying to put the hurt on you. TCG players are used to sorting through cards to see what they want to use, Fourth Edition players sort through powers and feats. And in Fourth Edition, Dungeon Masters can also choose to sort through monsters and encounter ideas, so DMing may have a bit more in common with skills you can learn in TCGs than it did in the past.

World of Warcraft doesn’t let you change the world you’re interacting with, nor does it let your DM craft their own game world and set stories in motion. D&D characters always seem much more like real people than WoW characters, and you’re likely to remember them as such. WoW players coming to Fourth Edition will probably be comfortable with the idea that Fourth Edition player characters get to make an interesting choice of a new power or ability every time they go up a level. That was missing from earlier editions of D&D.

The statement he makes on the matter is a pretty weak connection merely saying that choosing powers should be familiar to WoW players. He draws a far more direct and concrete line of design inspiration to Trading Card Games. Which I must also point out have aggro control mechanics (and active ones that that) which predate MMOs: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=167 .

You're taking a very strong position on designer intent, so I'm assuming there are well known statements or interviews with them saying "Yeah. We wanted to make something that emulated World of Wacraft" out there?

Zevox

2016-07-15, 08:28 PM

I'm a former 3.5 player (mostly play-by-post for that, but still, did quite a lot of it) who never played Pathfinder or 4e (I just sort of dropped out of D&D due to disinterest in 4e and the board I was on switching to it when it came out). Having played 5e for a little over a year now, I definitely prefer it to 3.5.

There's a few reasons why, some of which have been touched on. A broad one is that it feels like a streamlined version of 3.5. A lot of mechanics, spells, and concepts are plenty familiar, but a lot of the extra complications that were often just annoying in the long run have been trimmed down or cut out. And this is coming from somebody who at one time knew the 3.5 rules extremely well, because the board where I did play-by-post was very optimization-oriented. I find it's nice that the edition doesn't feel like it requires rules-lawyering, the way 3.5 could, and instead bakes into itself the idea of just trusting the DM to make a fair decision should anything unclear pop up during gameplay.

More specifically, a few changes that I really like stand out. One is subclasses - each class getting a few variations that you can choose between sometime between levels 1 and 3, which give different abilities. I really like how that works, how there's a basic gameplay element that lets two characters from the same class feel very different from each other without multiclassing or doing something weird with their stats or weapon selection or the like. It allows things that were previously only possible through multiclassing and/or prestige classes to be done much more easily - the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster Prestige classes becoming Fighter and Rogue subclasses being the clearest example. And it still leaves multiclassing around if you want to try your hand at the variety of options it allows.

Another is a couple of changes to spells, namely infinite-use Cantrips and Ritual spells. As someone who mostly plays spellcasters, I love those, especially Cantrips - having basic spells that never run out and can be used when what you're fighting isn't worth a spell slot or when you've run out is a godsend, and I would never want to go back to having my low-level wizards cart around crossbows so they can contribute after casting their few spells. On top of that, the non-combat cantrips are a lot of fun - yeah, a lot of them were in 3.5, but I often ignored them because it didn't feel worth tracking their limited uses for what little they did. Make them freebies though, and it becomes a lot of fun to think up what all the little things you can do with something like Prestidigitation or Minor Illusion from time to time might be. And as others have touched upon in a similar vein Rituals are a great way to help make out-of-combat spells more usable - no more wasting spell slots that you might need to save your ass in the next fight on them.

As others have said, things so far feel a lot more balanced too, a couple of notoriously weak subclasses notwithstanding, and there's never really a time where you feel like leveling up didn't get you anything - there's the occasional level where it feels like you got a lot less than usual, but there's never one with just a +1 to bab or a save like there could often be in 3.5, and I don't mean because those were replaced by the proficiency bonus. Bards becoming full casters is great too, as a very specific side-note. And the balance changes in terms of races are great too - no more penalties to stats for any race, mental stat boosts are no longer looked upon as taboo or requiring something like level adjustments to balance out, races like the Half-Elf that previously got shafted are actually worth using now. Variant Humans may be looked upon by optimizers as the best choice for most builds, but they're an optional variant to begin with, so any DM who's overly concerned about that can just say "we're not using that" and it's technically not even a house-rule.

So, yeah, there's a lot to like compared to 3.5 in my opinion. Not that 3.5 doesn't have its strong points as well, some of which didn't carry over to 5e, but on the whole I definitely find that at this point I would rather be playing 5e than 3.5.

Cybren

2016-07-15, 08:55 PM

You've now moved the standard from"abstract game mechanic" in the post I quoted to "active mechanic". In any case since your claim was it was an intentional design decision it should be easy enough to produce from the horses mouth. I'm not overly familiar with the 4e development cycle, but a quick google found this interview with the lead designer being specifically posed a question on how it compares to World of Warcraft among other things: http://guyslitwire.blogspot.com/2008/06/interview-rob-heinsoo-lead-designer-of.html

I haven't moved any standards, you're comparing two dissimilar things and claiming they are identical. I was pointing out why Final Fantasy does not meet the criteria. As for that interview, you have to look at the context of the release of 4th edition, where people were criticizing it for being similar to WoW in specific. He was downplaying the similarities while saying it might not be dissimilar to what a wow player is familiar with. Which is exactly what I said: The mechanics are not identical, but there is an aesthetic similarity. We return again to "You being needlessly obstinate".

my original post:

It's an aesthetic judgement, not a mechanical one- 4Es presentation and design evokes an MMORPG but does not emulate one, and it's kind of pointlessly obstinate to refuse that- it objectively sorts all the classes into damage/tank/control/support (which we get from everquest, by way of DikuMUD), uses a lot of abilities that have very gamist functions that don't present a clear picture of having any diagetic meaning(why can't this spell light these things on fire? Why can I only teleport as part of an attack and not just to move around? etc), and even gives an aesthetic marker of what 'power source' the classes have, while not allowing that to influence gameplay.

But please, continue.

Blarmb

2016-07-15, 09:33 PM

I haven't moved any standards, you're comparing two dissimilar things and claiming they are identical. I was pointing out why Final Fantasy does not meet the criteria. As for that interview, you have to look at the context of the release of 4th edition, where people were criticizing it for being similar to WoW in specific. He was downplaying the similarities while saying it might not be dissimilar to what a wow player is familiar with. Which is exactly what I said: The mechanics are not identical, but there is an aesthetic similarity. We return again to "You being needlessly obstinate".

You claimed that the relevant feature was an abstract game mechanic to control over who attacks who.. These are your exact words:

Those roles, in name, trace their origins to D&D. In execution, the idea of 'tanking' was created with DikuMUD, and then emulated in everquest and WOW. All of these games did so via threat management, but that being a cumbersome execution in pen and paper, 4E opted for 'markingqaq41205. Certainly in previous versions of D&D you had ways of encouraging people to attack you, but those were almost all based on positioning. Codifying it via abstract game mechanics is an MMO concept.

Here you make the specific claim that encouraging people to attack a particular target (you) with an abstract game mechanic is an MMO concept. I put forward an example of target control using an abstract concept predating and existing outside MMOs. You then changed the standard to be active mechanics. I've underlined the relevant part of the post. I addressed a claim you did make and provided an example that met the standard put forward at the time.

Secondly, I'd ask we abstain from personal attacks. I've not used an pejorative terminology with regards to your positions and intentions please refrain from characterizing me "Obstinate". I'm trying to have a discussion in good faith here. I'm doing my best to keep things factual and address specific claims.

Finally, you do make a direct and strong claim to designer intent here:

4th edition was intentionally designed to have an aesthetic similarity to MMORPGs.

I've not saying you're wrong in making this statement. I'm simply asking for evidence for the claim. A statement from the designers on their intentions, copies of design notes talking about the direction they wanted to go, even marketing materials would be sufficient. Heck I might be missing some categories of evidence that would work.

I produced a source and cited it showing that the designers intended it to mirror TCGs.I don't deny the claim quoted here is plausible. I'm just asking for anything to go on when evaluating the truth of that statement beyond your own insistence.

SaintRidley

2016-07-15, 09:37 PM

For me, it comes down to a few things.

1. 5e is, as far as D&D goes, rules light (not rules light in an absolute sense, but relative to the mainline of D&D it really is). This is a huge thing for me, because I had gotten tired of 3.5 and the weight of the rules. It was too much. Too much to remember, too much specificity, too much conflict with the rules.

2. Splat bloat. 3.5 has the problem, for me, of too many options. And I own a shelf full of them. That's a lot of money invested, but it's just too much, and with stuff spread out among so very many books, it's just not something I want to deal with anymore. This is why I actually love 5e's very relaxed released schedule. I'm plenty happy to receive one or two books with new player options per year. I don't need more. It keeps the game affordable for me, and gives me plenty of time to enjoy the new options as they come.

3. It's streamlined. All the rules in 3.5 were one thing, but it's the dizzying array of weird interactions between those rules that gets to me. Lots of fiddly bonuses to keep track of as well. I'm very glad to be rid of that much granularity and fiddliness. Advantage, disadvantage, done. 5e moves smoothly, and that's something I appreciate.

90sMusic

2016-07-15, 09:45 PM

Depends what you want out of the game honestly.

3.5 is hard to homebrew anything and keep it balanced because there are layers and layers of modifiers and bonuses to account for and unexpected interactions between things, etc.
5.0 is pretty cake to homebrew and balance things if you're halfway reasonable about it. Concentration goes a long way towards fixing spell buffs from becoming overwhelming and all the classes are pretty well balanced with one another.

After playing both editions very extensively, 3.5 and pathfinder for many years and 5.0 for the past year, I can say 5e lets you focus more on the story and the game it's self with less having to micromanage every tedious little thing like you do in 3.5. Combat takes place much faster, much smoother, and much more balanced way and you can enjoy faster paced combat while still being able to make tactical decisions and it leaves a lot more time available for character interactions and story stuff.

Of course if you're one of the people who likes having layers and layers of modifiers and making up your own interpretations on what stacks, what doesn't, how various things interact, and the constant min-maxing everyone attempts, you may not enjoy 5e so much.

But with gold being more of a luxury resource for buying land, houses, hiring servants, etc it all helps build the world around you and is a lot more interesting than "welp, im at 30,000gp, im going to goto Discount Bill's Magic Emporium and pickup some lesser medium boots". With magical items being so infinitely more valuable than literally everything else in existence, you'd think more people would be wizards to sell that **** or that the shopkeeps would be the kings ruling the kingdom since they would have more money than god. 5e's approach of not being able to just buy whatever you want and having to actually find it is a lot more interesting and fun for me because it adds a bit of unpredictability to the game and lets you play with items you wouldn't have picked up if you had a choice and maybe finding out they actually have some pretty awesome creative uses to them.

It also simplifies so many things to wonderful degrees. Like grappling for example is 10,000 times better in 5e than 3.5/pathfinder.

After playing 5e so much, I can't imagine ever going back to pathfinder again. The one and only downside to 5e, in my opinion, is just because it's so new and the older versions of D&D are so old, the amount of material to choose from when making your character is extremely limited compared to the older versions. But again, homebrewing is very easy to balance in 5e so unless your DM is a **** or you're trying to munchkin your way to an overpowered race/class/whatever, you can still play an approximation of a 5e version of any pathfinder/3.5 class.

I've played more D&D in the year since i started 5e than I have in more than a decade of previous versions. It's just so fun and addicting now, it's hard to put down. And you can get so many more, new people into it as well so its easier for friends to start playing which also helps make it more fun.

Sigreid

2016-07-15, 09:59 PM

The best reason to switch to 5.0 is you have a group you like playing with that wants to. Really, if the actual game you're playing isn't secondary to enjoying playing with the group your with then you should look for a group of people you like more.

As far as mechanics go, it's faster and you're far less likely to forget to include a fiddly bit that would have given you a slight bonus allowing you to be the hero of the hour instead of the looser who let the world down. This is because most of those fiddly bits don't exist.

2D8HP

2016-07-16, 06:53 AM

Well....
Since you played AD&D as well as 3.5, I'll compare all the editions that I'm familiar with.
People seem to speak most fondly of B/X and 2e, and 3.5 seems to be the most played, but 5e is still a pretty good game that's in the stores for new players (with recent reprints 1e, 2e, and 3.5 are at my FLGS as well, but 5e is at Barnes and Noble which are everywhere!), and I can pick all the core books plus "Princes of the Apocalypse" at the nearest library branch for free, plus most of the rules are free online! +1 point 5e
The 1977 Basic rules and a lot of 1e AD&D, I have pretty much memorized so 5e (and other editions) I simply can't remember as well -1 point 5e.
5e has more types of classes then the D&D I'm more familiar with, 40 classes/sub-classes in the PHB! That's 36 more then Holmes! +1 point 5e.
The class I most wanted to play in 1e (Ranger) was awesome! The Ranger in 5e is only so so, compared to other classes. -1 point 5e.
I could never actually role high enough ability scores to play the 1e Ranger! With point buy in 5e I can create just about any character I want! +1 point 5e.
In 3e I could create an even bigger variety of characters then 5e, -1 point 5e.
Most of those extra classes were in the supplements, not the PHB, plus using all those supplements made 3.x a giant bloated mess. +1 point 5e.
In oD&D, and 1e I never felt that classes other then "Fighting man/Fighters" were very effective at 1st level. In 5e all classes seem effective. +1 point 5e.
In '77 Basic I knew very well what a "Cleric", "Fighter", "Magic User", and "Thief" were. Forty freakin' sub-classes in 5e? Nice to have them, but ouch my head! 0 points.
Magic Users in 1e were amazing at high levels, other classes not so much. In 5e the classes seem more balanced at most levels. +1 point 5e.

Speaking of which - these kids these days, and their instant gratification! Getting all this cheap experience, and leveling about 100x faster than we used to. Levels used to mean something!

Damn straight! 1st level 5e characters are cool. 20th level are gods! Too ridiculously overpowered at high levels, and they just get high level too fast! -1 point 5e.
So 6 points 5e, 4 points not 5e. 5e is the winner!

Zalabim

2016-07-16, 08:20 AM

Why does everyone say this? I've played a ton of World of Warcraft and 4es mechanics are nothing like it or any other video game I've played for that matter. The only thing they share in common is a rather superficial similarity in the way they codify class roles.

[snip]

I'm genuinely curious as to what the similarities people see are. To me a much better analogue for 4e is small-scale tabletop skirmish game.

There's really only one way that 4E is like an MMO, and it isn't the aesthetics (though some of the art is like warcraft), the class design or the combat mechanics. They both had online features that you had to pay a monthly fee to access. For some reason, no one can just spit that out. It is the only similarity that won't be disputed. It's not about how 4e feels. It's not about how 4e plays. It's not about how 4e looks. It's that wotc asked for more money.

Blarmb

2016-07-16, 08:44 AM

There's really only one way that 4E is like an MMO, and it isn't the aesthetics (though some of the art is like warcraft), the class design or the combat mechanics. They both had online features that you had to pay a monthly fee to access. For some reason, no one can just spit that out. It is the only similarity that won't be disputed. It's not about how 4e feels. It's not about how 4e plays. It's not about how 4e looks. It's that wotc asked for more money.

This makes a lot of sense to me. While MMOs are hardly the only thing with a subscription model, I can see where the comparison being pretty spot-on with it being a subscription service for updates & access to fantasy world. In that way it really is quite like the pen-and-paper Warcraft.

I'd honestly prefer to be taking people at face value when they say it was about the gameplay but you've really pointed out close, indisputable connection between the two here. Thanks I hadn't thought about this angle before.

smcmike

2016-07-16, 08:50 AM

This makes a lot of sense to me. While MMOs are hardly the only thing with a subscription model, I can see where the comparison being pretty spot-on with it being a subscription service for updates & access to fantasy world. In that way it really is quite like the pen-and-paper Warcraft.

I'd honestly prefer to be taking people at face value when they say it was about the gameplay but you've really pointed out close, indisputable connection between the two here. Thanks I hadn't thought about this angle before.

That really isn't it at all.

You are analyzing it too closely, I think. It's about feel, and gaminess. That's all. When you go into specifics and say "this gamey-feeling feature is actually quite different from this gamey-feeling feature," you are missing the forest for the trees.

This isn't even a direct attack on the gameplay of 4e. I'm one who took half a look at it, decided it was too gamey, and stuck with 3.5.

Blarmb

2016-07-16, 09:08 AM

That really isn't it at all.

You are analyzing it too closely, I think. It's about feel, and gaminess. That's all. When you go into specifics and say "this gamey-feeling feature is actually quite different from this gamey-feeling feature," you are missing the forest for the trees.

This isn't even a direct attack on the gameplay of 4e. I'm one who took half a look at it, decided it was too gamey, and stuck with 3.5.

The frequent claim isn't "gaminess". If folks were saying what you said in this post I wouldn't have any questions about it. Your claim here is straightforward and general. You glanced it at, whatever you saw in that first glance wasn't interesting enough to warrant an in-depth examination and you dismissed the game as anything worthwhile. That's a consistent and easily understood position, I get it.

The frequent claim is "It plays too much like World of Warcraft". To get specific (though I am mostly trying to address the general case here), the poster I orginally posed the question to in this thread had this to say:

That being said, I played Advanced, then 3.0, then 3.5, saw 4th and had a visceral reaction to the system as it was all too similar to the mechanics of World of Warcraft (I also had a visceral dislike of the artwork). Because of the bad taste that 4th left with me, I was immensely skeptical of D&D Next as 5th ed used to be called.

That's a really specific claim directly about the specific mechanics of World of Warcraft. It's not a general "too gamey" or "didn't like the feel of it". The system was all to similar to the mechanics of World of Warcraft. If the standard for being like World of Warcraft is mere gaminess than just about every game on the market ever that isn't a story-focused RPG is like World of Warcraft. The specific call out for World of Warcraft by definition must mean folks are seeing something in 4e that they also see in World of Warcraft but do not see in other products and games, at least assuming that claim is being made in good faith.

Put another way when I see something yellow I say "It is yellow" not "It reminds me of a banana", because many things are yellow. For something to warrant a comparison to banana it'd have to share otherwise unique traits with a banana, traits not held by all yellow objects.

The only other way I can account for at some point is some long forgotten poster on a WotC board or something went "This is kind of gamey and I don't like it. What's a popular game I can compare it to to be divisive? I know World of Warcraft! That's really popular!" and everyone since just jumped on the bandwagon without ever actually comparing the two games or otherwise giving the meme a second thought. I really wouldn't want that to be the answer either as it's so crappy. People are better than that... right?

Cybren

2016-07-16, 09:18 AM

You are way too invested in this. You even agreed that 4E has an aesthetic similarity to mmorpgs, but you continue to argue for no real reason than to argue

There's really only one way that 4E is like an MMO, and it isn't the aesthetics (though some of the art is like warcraft), the class design or the combat mechanics. They both had online features that you had to pay a monthly fee to access. For some reason, no one can just spit that out. It is the only similarity that won't be disputed. It's not about how 4e feels. It's not about how 4e plays. It's not about how 4e looks. It's that wotc asked for more money.

Aesthetics with respect to a game design refers to more than (and really, not at all) the artwork found in the books. It has to do with the way the mechanics and design overall evokes a certain feel. The non-diagetic nature of a lot of the combat powers, for example, is a very CRPG concept.

Blarmb

2016-07-16, 09:30 AM

You are way too invested in this. You even agreed that 4E has an aesthetic similarity to mmorpgs, but you continue to argue for no real reason than to argue

Aesthetics with respect to a game design refers to more than (and really, not at all) the artwork found in the books. It has to do with the way the mechanics and design overall evokes a certain feel. The non-diagetic nature of a lot of the combat powers, for example, is a very CRPG concept.

I think I will just have to respectfully drop the line of discussion here. You're continually ascribing intent to me, and addressing my perceived motives rather than addressing my points. We've also veered well enough off topic that we should probably put a cap on it anyway. This is after all, 3.P -> 5.0 discussion. My apologies to the OP for getting pulled on to a tangent.

So back to the main thrust of the thread:

Another advantage of 5e is that it's fairly easy to create content for. 3.P had really strict rules on how to create monsters, how types related to hit points, how monsters to feats and generated skill points. It was kind of a pain in my personal opinion. 5e with just the basic rules just kind of gives you examples and you can fill in anything you want. If you add in the DMG it gives some damage progression suggestions and a beefier framework but it still isn't as heavy-handed as the 3.P system and it doesn't paint following this guidelines as strictly necessary. The net effect is that if you want to you can get really crazy and off the wall with your monster designs, without it feeling like you're running contrary to the intent of the system.

The regular structure of all classes and the Archetype system makes adding your own player content really easy too. Does your setting have a special order of paladins with cool powers? Just add your own Oath or replace one of the standard ones! They give you a lot of structure to work with that is just a bit easier to handle than the super open-ended nature of 3.P homebrew.

Cybren

2016-07-16, 09:50 AM

I think I will just have to respectfully drop the line of discussion here. You're continually ascribing intent to me, and addressing my perceived motives rather than addressing my points. We've also veered well enough off topic that we should probably put a cap on it anyway. This is after all, 3.P -> 5.0 discussion. My apologies to the OP for getting pulled on to a tangent.

You do not have points- this is not a debate. People make an aesthetic value judgement which you felt the need to critique, and when it was pointed out the motivations for that value judgement, you continued to critique it. There is no audience to win, you asked a question, and when you got an unsatisfying answer just denied it.

smcmike

2016-07-16, 10:01 AM

That's a really specific claim directly about the specific mechanics of World of Warcraft. It's not a general "too gamey" or "didn't like the feel of it". The system was all to similar to the mechanics of World of Warcraft. If the standard for being like World of Warcraft is mere gaminess than just about every game on the market ever that isn't a story-focused RPG is like World of Warcraft. The specific call out for World of Warcraft by definition must mean folks are seeing something in 4e that they also see in World of Warcraft but do not see in other products and games, at least assuming that claim is being made in good faith.

Put another way when I see something yellow I say "It is yellow" not "It reminds me of a banana", because many things are yellow. For something to warrant a comparison to banana it'd have to share otherwise unique traits with a banana, traits not held by all yellow objects.

Not really, man. If someone is wearing a banana-yellow shirt, and I say "haha, man, you look like a banana," that's a valid comparison.

In this case, the general "gaminess" argument calls for comparison to a more gamey RPG. The most popular such game at the time was WoW. Mystery solved.

You're continually ascribing intent to me, and addressing my perceived motives rather than addressing my points.

Ascribing intent is a habit to avoid, but you are being a bit nitpicky about it, considering that your argument seems to do the same thing:

The only other way I can account for at some point is some long forgotten poster on a WotC board or something went "This is kind of gamey and I don't like it. What's a popular game I can compare it to to be divisive? I know World of Warcraft! That's really popular!" and everyone since just jumped on the bandwagon without ever actually comparing the two games or otherwise giving the meme a second thought. I really wouldn't want that to be the answer either as it's so crappy. People are better than that... right?

What is this if not ascribing intent, and then slapping negative judgment on people?

Cybren

2016-07-16, 10:07 AM

Not really, man. If someone is wearing a banana-yellow shirt, and I say "haha, man, you look like a banana," that's a valid comparison.

In this case, the general "gaminess" argument calls for comparison to a more gamey RPG. The most popular such game at the time was WoW. Mystery solved.

Right, people don't prepare a meticulous 14 part slide show comparing different gaming properties when they want to make an analogy, the play a game, and that game has an emotional impact on them that they relate to something they are familiar with.

I've even pointed out that a lot of the mechanics people think are native to world of warcraft date back to MUDS from the early 90s, but that doesn't change that the reaction people have is based on their personal frame of reference regardless of the historical origins of any given design paradigm

Hrugner

2016-07-16, 04:58 PM

I'm not going to jump into the arguments, but as to the point of the thread: I have started playing 5e going from Pathfinder and it's alright. It's not a game I'll use as a standby and won't run anything in it, but it's fine to play.

Organizing thoughts into a pros vs. cons arrangement wouldn't make sense as most of the differences are neither good or bad, just changes.
-5e is very light on rules and specifics. It's often under written leaving much up to the DM, so depending on who is running the game this can either lead to a smoother experience with less reference work, or a rough and irregular experience with players unsure where they stand.
-Character generation is very simple. There are few mechanical decisions to be made while making a character, and magic items are much less integral to player advancement. While great for speedy character generation and new players, it lacks the complexity and depth of character creation in Pathfinder, and you're unlikely to find a character that is mechanically interesting or unusual. Many abilities have enough stipulations to prevent them from being mixed with other abilities.
-Many familiar problems still survive from Pathfinder to 5e, light and darkness, distance coverage with unusual movement, when actions start and stop and so on.

The best things 5e have going for it are the greatly reduced variation in numerical advantage, the advantage disadvantage system, and player backgrounds. If you really like Pathfinder, I'd steal player backgrounds and the advantage disadvantage system and port them backward.