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  1. - Top - End - #121
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    AssassinGuy

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    Default Re: Devs change - worse content?

    We've mostly used published adventures, and in answer to the OP, yes they've gotten worse. My gripes are as follows:
    Newer stuff is generally
    A) Lower level, and/ or
    B) Anthologies of modules, in many cases re-hashed older material that doesn't form an actual single adventure, and/ or
    C) Leans far too heavily into the Social Pillar.

    I've stopped buying published adventures. If they start making something as epic as OotA or DiA again I'll buy it.

  2. - Top - End - #122
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    Default Re: Devs change - worse content?

    Esper the Bard over on YouTube dropped this today. Seems relevant:


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    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    RE: running out of force - I think it's a gameplay/story segregation thing. In the movies and shows, characters who overuse the Force become physically fatigued or even fall unconscious (and in at least one case might outright die) - while in the games, when Force is metered at all it tends to not hamper your normal running and jumping etc at all.

    Personally I can see the value in a magic system that taxes you physically as you drain your power reserves, and maybe that's part of the key to reining casters in.
    Old+bad: Berserker Barbarians using Frenzy causes exhaustion
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    Quote Originally Posted by 5eNeedsDarksun View Post

    I've stopped buying published adventures. If they start making something as epic as OotA or DiA again I'll buy it.
    Considering how bad DiA is as a complete adventure, I hope any future 'epic' modules are nothing like it.
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  4. - Top - End - #124
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    "Running out of force" makes perfectly fine sense, as does tiered abilities. Especially when you've got weaker at-will abilities that can use the force all day long, aka cantrips.

    Even resource based marital abilities or technological abilities work fine, as long as you've got lower powered at-wills to fill in the gaps.

    The idea that Martials, Jedi, or even technology can just spam all their moves any time they want is what doesn't match the fiction, especially if your fiction is based on anything media (film, books, comics, etc). It's very common in those for special abilities to be used once per scene or even story arc.
    Yes but do they work exactly a set number of times defined by tiers before becoming unusable, being mutually exclusive with other abilities of the same tier but do not effect uses of higher or lower tier abilities? The answer is no. This is what the boss baby problem does, it makes you bend the setting and logic into a pretzel to justify a sacred cow of the mechanics. “I’ve run out of cybernetics” and “I need to rest for exactly 8 hours before I can force again” are two things that shouldn’t exist. Ammunition yes but for all of those other aspects of the game other balancing and resource mechanics should exist.

    As an aside the caster/martial disparity is uniquely a dnd problem precisely because of the class system and how spell slots are balanced. Fact is Vancian magic is inherently broken as it is currently implemented in the game and it’s the reason the Adventuring Day is such a unruly and obtuse system.
    Quote Originally Posted by Amnestic View Post
    Old+bad: Berserker Barbarians using Frenzy causes exhaustion
    New+good: Casting spells causes exhaustion



    Considering how bad DiA is as a complete adventure, I hope any future 'epic' modules are nothing like it.
    RE: to the topic of spellcasting making you tired. It works well and a lot of systems do it but slapping it in 5e is I’ll advised IMO. The classes are, at least theoretically, balanced against each other at least in a mathematical sense. Most systems that use something like this have Low HP, Low Damage, and don’t try to balance around the assumption that someone is going to not use the system but still somehow keep up in every aspect of the game. As just a example from my own work I have one catch all resource called Stamina that goes down when you get hit and can be willingly reduced to fuel abilities. Likewise some abilities can apply penalties for the rest of the scene.

    Note for moth of these cases I don’t think the idea is bad, in fact I think using powerful abilities effecting your performance in other areas is a good idea, but not in DnD’s class and level based system.
    Last edited by Jervis; 2022-11-16 at 04:49 AM.

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    Griffon

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    Quote Originally Posted by Schwann145 View Post
    Esper the Bard over on YouTube dropped this today. Seems relevant:

    Thank you for sharing. I recognize some points, but at the same time it's a bit grognardish, and not in the good sense. There still is (for instance) enough dark and gritty and edgy stuff around in DnD (Rime of the Frostmaiden with cannibalism and all kind of horror and awfulness, Ravenloft setting). There always were part of the game that catered more to younger audiences. He mentions the cartoon himself. I don't think it's all that different. Yes, it got populair, and that automatically means it becomes mainstream and less 'punk', not because the contents changed but because when punk becomes popular it's automatically less punk, even if the music stays exactly the same - to stay in his anology.

    As a sidenote: damn I hate video's. Sorry if I'm the grognard now, but I could have read this stuff in 2 minutes and now you have to look at it friggin 17 minutes to get the same info? Like people don't have anything to do these days. And now get off my lawn, all of you.

  6. - Top - End - #126
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    Quote Originally Posted by Waazraath View Post
    As a sidenote: damn I hate video's. Sorry if I'm the grognard now, but I could have read this stuff in 2 minutes and now you have to look at it friggin 17 minutes to get the same info? Like people don't have anything to do these days. And now get off my lawn, all of you.
    As a D&D YT creator, I feel you, I really do. The audience (and potential for monetization) is more easily on YT, and that's what drives things. I personally use YT videos as podcast type stuff mostly, typically if you're listening to D&D stuff that aren't animated stories, the video is irrelevant. A lot of the time it's just random images grabbed from the internet and questionable font choices, no help in conveying the message, but sadly the masses are attracted by jump cuts and imagery.

    Entirely tangential, but I do agree, YT is not the best source for low-signal high-value information, because it needs to be entertainment and have necessary patterns in, reading will generally be better for that. Still good to have on the side when you're working though :p

    I'll probably get around to the actual video in question... later maybe.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    Having 9 levels of power just reeks of "magic" to anyone that's played D&D.
    Chainmail and D&D original had six. One of the best parts of Chainmail was that a given spell might fail. Complexity (pg 33 chainmail 3rd edition) . I means "Immediate effect" D means "Delayed until next turn" and N means "negated or otherwise non- effective." Rolls are 2d6. Resolved in one roll.
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    We've kind of lost that, though saving throws do restore the idea that "it didn't work" or "it didn't work well enough" to the game. To say the adding level 7 - 9 spells to the game (Greyhawk Supplement) was bloat is a bit of an understatement. Had those spells remained for NPCs, or for rituals, or for 'can only find on a scroll' or 'takes research to make one scroll to cast once' some of the OPness and 'strategic' stuff after level 11 would not become quite the issue that it is now.
    Quote Originally Posted by Waazraath View Post
    As a sidenote: damn I hate video's. Sorry if I'm the grognard now, but I could have read this stuff in 2 minutes and now you have to look at it friggin 17 minutes to get the same info? Like people don't have anything to do these days. And now get off my lawn, all of you.
    Very few are well enough produced to get my thumbs up. They are mostly more bloated than D&D splat books ...
    Last edited by KorvinStarmast; 2022-11-16 at 09:24 AM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Oramac View Post
    Personally not a fan of this sort of thing. I could maybe get with "X per minute" features, but I just don't care for round-based features. For me, they break verisimilitude in a big way, especially since the "round" is happening all at once.
    I was going to say "but action economy is literally round-based resources," but then I understood better that you meant "things that refresh after X rounds," and yeah, for 5e, that's way too fiddly. If you really, REALLY want that level of granularity, you can go with the recharge mechanic that monsters use.

    In fact, if you're having a lot of trouble with nova-ing and overpowered casters due to too few encounters per day, going to spells having a recharge mechanic rather than a spell slot mechanic (or even having a recharge mechanic in addition to a spell slot mechanic), possibly with higher level spells recharging on rarer results (a 3+ for 1-2 level spells, 4+ for 3-4 level spells, 5+ for 5-6 level spells, 6+ for 7-9 level spells; you can't cast a leveled spell until this recharges) might limit the combat/encounter power of a spellcaster more. I literally just thought of this while writing this post, so I have barely given it any thought, though.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    Tell that to SW5e: Star Wars 5e. It even did technological powers (e.g. for engineering) as "spells". It worked great.

    Of course, it could be that it was point based with psuedo-vancian spell "levels" instead of slot based with psuedo-vancian spell "levels", similar to the DMG option in 5e. That makes all the difference to some folks.

    Edit: it'd be even better in 4e AEDU format, which feel power source agnostic. Having 9 levels of power just reeks of "magic" to anyone that's played D&D. Which IIRC was a huge problem for reception of the 3.5e martial book. It takes a little bit of willingness to accept technological stuff as not magic when it's 9 levels of power. But for Jedi it shouldn't take any extra willingness. They're already mystical.
    I was unaware of the system; it sounds like it'd be iffy to me to try to map it to Star Wars, but I am not enough of a Star Wars fan to really be able to say for sure.

    I will say that shifting from slots to spell points can make all the difference in how a "magic system" feels. It made a huge difference in how psionics felt in 3.5, for instance. This isn't to say that one is superior to the other, but rather that the choice of which to use can serve your flavor needs if you use it to do so.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Waazraath View Post
    As a sidenote: damn I hate video's. Sorry if I'm the grognard now, but I could have read this stuff in 2 minutes and now you have to look at it friggin 17 minutes to get the same info? Like people don't have anything to do these days. And now get off my lawn, all of you.
    If it's not in text form, it might as well not exist.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    If you really, REALLY want that level of granularity, you can go with the recharge mechanic that monsters use.
    That might get the accusation of "it's too video gamey" since that looks a lot like 'cool down' mechanics (see Diablo III, WoW, Warcraft III, etc).
    I will say that shifting from slots to spell points can make all the difference in how a "magic system" feels. .
    I played spell points with Max Wilson in our PbP game, and it 'works well enough' but the DMG limitation on level 6, 7, 8, 9 spells (only 1 per long rest) was fine ... but as I review that scheme I think that the spell point costs for levels 6, 7, 8, 9 need to go up a little bit.
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    Quote Originally Posted by KorvinStarmast View Post
    Chainmail and D&D original had six.
    Excellent grognard-y point sir. I stand in violation of not caveating properly.

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    Quote Originally Posted by KorvinStarmast View Post
    That might get the accusation of "it's too video gamey" since that looks a lot like 'cool down' mechanics (see Diablo III, WoW, Warcraft III, etc).
    I mean, the mechanic is already there in 5e, and it's not like just because it's currently limited to monsters, players don't know it exists.
    Quote Originally Posted by KorvinStarmast View Post
    I played spell points with Max Wilson in our PbP game, and it 'works well enough' but the DMG limitation on level 6, 7, 8, 9 spells (only 1 per long rest) was fine ... but as I review that scheme I think that the spell point costs for levels 6, 7, 8, 9 need to go up a little bit.
    Sure. All I was saying is that it changes the feel of things enough to make a difference. You could have standard spell slots represent "magic" and spell points represent something else that's not magic, for instance, and have that be enough distinction to make the subsystems feel different.

    Psionics, some sort of "battery" for "tech tricks," Alchemical Reagent Points.... I'm sure more creative people than I can come up with more options.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    I mean, the mechanic is already there in 5e, and it's not like just because it's currently limited to monsters, players don't know it exists.
    Sure. All I was saying is that it changes the feel of things enough to make a difference. You could have standard spell slots represent "magic" and spell points represent something else that's not magic, for instance, and have that be enough distinction to make the subsystems feel different.

    Psionics, some sort of "battery" for "tech tricks," Alchemical Reagent Points.... I'm sure more creative people than I can come up with more options.
    IMO spell points work best with short rest spell progression like warlock.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Amnestic View Post
    Considering how bad DiA is as a complete adventure, I hope any future 'epic' modules are nothing like it.
    I thought DiA was well received. Could it be said that mad max infernal engines did a lot of the heavy lifting of enjoyment? I only got 2-3 sessions in, skipping the pointless intro in BG & jumping straight down, and I thought it was pretty good. I guess I just brought up a red flag, the fact that the intro is so convoluted and pointless.

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    Quote Originally Posted by TyGuy View Post
    I thought DiA was well received. Could it be said that mad max infernal engines did a lot of the heavy lifting of enjoyment? I only got 2-3 sessions in, skipping the pointless intro in BG & jumping straight down, and I thought it was pretty good. I guess I just brought up a red flag, the fact that the intro is so convoluted and pointless.
    I hated running that adventure so much I gave the party an out and tried to tempt them to take it.
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    Quote Originally Posted by TyGuy View Post
    I thought DiA was well received. Could it be said that mad max infernal engines did a lot of the heavy lifting of enjoyment? I only got 2-3 sessions in, skipping the pointless intro in BG & jumping straight down, and I thought it was pretty good. I guess I just brought up a red flag, the fact that the intro is so convoluted and pointless.
    This isn't really the thread for it but my key problems with it:-

    1) Everything before you actually get to hell is kinda pointless, and seemingly exists only to give you low level gameplay to level up high enough to have an excuse to not immediately die in hell, (Cynically: and so they can stick the Baldur's Gate name on the box for marketing purposes).

    2) When you're actually *in* hell, the 'path' you're meant to follow with Lulu is a big sequence of time wasting without meaningful story progression, and this makes up a decent chunk of the actual hell playtime as you bounce between locations learning nothing of value. It very much can lead to players feel like they're spinning their wheels instead of accomplishing anything.

    Less notably, 3) If your party is full of goody two-shoes who won't be tempted by hellish things then it kinda cuts off the whole temptation aspect. This happened for one of my friend's groups who ran it - they were a capital 'g' Good Paladin and their party held similar views, so the whole soul coin trading aspect was...less productive? This, admittedly, is perhaps something that could have been addressed with a session 0, but on the other hand a team of good guys going to hell is thematically appropriate.

    It's not unsalvageable as an adventure by any means, and a DM with sufficient interest can make adjustments to improve upon it, but out of the box it was a big disappointment. DiA did not adequately deliver on the promise of its premise, to me.

    (sort of related: neither did Dragon Heist)
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    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    I was going to say "but action economy is literally round-based resources," but then I understood better that you meant "things that refresh after X rounds," and yeah, for 5e, that's way too fiddly. If you really, REALLY want that level of granularity, you can go with the recharge mechanic that monsters use.

    In fact, if you're having a lot of trouble with nova-ing and overpowered casters due to too few encounters per day, going to spells having a recharge mechanic rather than a spell slot mechanic (or even having a recharge mechanic in addition to a spell slot mechanic), possibly with higher level spells recharging on rarer results (a 3+ for 1-2 level spells, 4+ for 3-4 level spells, 5+ for 5-6 level spells, 6+ for 7-9 level spells; you can't cast a leveled spell until this recharges) might limit the combat/encounter power of a spellcaster more. I literally just thought of this while writing this post, so I have barely given it any thought, though.
    The Lich already sort of has this in its Lair Actions. It can roll a d8 and regain a spell slot of the level rolled. It actually works really well, imo.

    It's not so much that I have trouble with nova or casters. Honestly, it's not even the mechanic that bothers me. I count rounds normally. It's using "rounds" as a determinant of recharge or expiration for a feature that breaks verisimilitude for me. Combat has no "rounds". We only break it into rounds to help track it better. So an in-character function using an out-of-character mechanic bothers me.

    I will say that shifting from slots to spell points can make all the difference in how a "magic system" feels. It made a huge difference in how psionics felt in 3.5, for instance. This isn't to say that one is superior to the other, but rather that the choice of which to use can serve your flavor needs if you use it to do so.
    IMO, spell points should have been the default. They work WAY better in my experience, and feel better to boot.
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    Quote Originally Posted by KorvinStarmast View Post
    13th age fused what the authors thought was 'the best of 4e and 5e' with a few other quirks tossed in, and capped at level 10. I liked a lot of what I was seeing as we prepared to play, but that group broke up way too soon thanks to the RL sux affliction.
    Nitpick: As the brainchild of Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet, 13th Age (my favorite RPG, incidentally) combined the best of 4e and 3e; it actually was published almost exactly a year before 5e was. But yes, it solves a lot of the issues plaguing 5e rather well, and I’m sorry that your group broke up before you really got to play it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Amnestic View Post
    This isn't really the thread for it but my key problems with it:-
    On the contrary, this is the perfect place to bring up the trajectory of module quality. Most the relevant conversation has been on splatbooks. I imagine experience with modules is rarer than splatbooks, and experience with multiple modules before and after the staff changes is rarer still.

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    Quote Originally Posted by TyGuy View Post
    On the contrary, this is the perfect place to bring up the trajectory of module quality. Most the relevant conversation has been on splatbooks. I imagine experience with modules is rarer than splatbooks, and experience with multiple modules before and after the staff changes is rarer still.
    I don't have a full grasp of every module, but of those I've played or read the most glowing description I could give of 5e's adventures is consistently mediocre, with more 'bad' than 'good'. It's hard to say the 'old devs' (if we're taking that to mean 'pre-Tasha's') were better when they were dropping big stinkers like Tyranny of Dragons, Dragon Heist, or DiA.

    I haven't heard great things about Call of the Netherdeep or the Spelljammer stuff, but that's not really a surprise to me. Same old, same old.

    Paizo definitely ain't perfect with their PF adventure paths but I'm generally a lot more positive on them than the 5e releases from WotC.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    If it's not in text form, it might as well not exist.
    Quote Originally Posted by KorvinStarmast View Post
    Very few are well enough produced to get my thumbs up. They are mostly more bloated than D&D splat books ...
    I just crank up the playback speed *shrug* if it's a topic I'm interested in, I have no problem putting one on in the background.

    Quote Originally Posted by Waazraath View Post
    Thank you for sharing. I recognize some points, but at the same time it's a bit grognardish, and not in the good sense. There still is (for instance) enough dark and gritty and edgy stuff around in DnD (Rime of the Frostmaiden with cannibalism and all kind of horror and awfulness, Ravenloft setting). There always were part of the game that catered more to younger audiences. He mentions the cartoon himself. I don't think it's all that different. Yes, it got populair, and that automatically means it becomes mainstream and less 'punk', not because the contents changed but because when punk becomes popular it's automatically less punk, even if the music stays exactly the same - to stay in his anology.
    Yeah his analogy doesn't really make sense here. They were abundantly clear in the devblog that their design goal for Inspiration was for it to be awarded more often so that players would actually use it. If his group finds it meaningful and special to hold a vote at the end of every session to identify that session's "MVP" and award it only to them, that's great, he can still do that. A general rule about inspiration being awarded on a nat 20 or nat 1, or for humans to wake up with it, doesn't havei to change the way his group plays the game, and the same is true for the game in a macro sense. D&D becoming more mainstream and less "punk" is a good thing, and doesn't have to impact the way he plays it at all.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sigreid View Post
    I hated running that adventure so much I gave the party an out and tried to tempt them to take it.
    Could you elaborate on why you hated running it? I have not had much interaction with it at all, but you're the first one I've heard hated running it, so I'm curious what made it so unlikable to you.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Amnestic View Post
    I don't have a full grasp of every module, but of those I've played or read the most glowing description I could give of 5e's adventures is consistently mediocre, with more 'bad' than 'good'. It's hard to say the 'old devs' (if we're taking that to mean 'pre-Tasha's') were better when they were dropping big stinkers like Tyranny of Dragons, Dragon Heist, or DiA.
    I have no dog in this fight, as I don't buy or use modules. But one thing to remember is that Tyranny of Dragons was
    1) outsourced (ie "licensed 3rd party")
    2) mostly written using playtest materials and without access to DMG or MM or even the full PHB (although edited afterward)
    3) written before anyone had a good idea how 5e was going to work.

    The only module(s) I've played in are
    * half of PotA. It was...ok. Not great, but then again it's set in FR and is a module. It was comparable in quality (but way better in organization, based on how much flipping through things the DM had to do) to the first book of Rise of the Runelords (PF), which I also played in.
    * two different DDAL modules, one as a DM and one in AL. The one I DM'd was ok. Not great. The one I played in seemed rather pointless. Lots of faffing about, nothing much actually happened. But I understand some of the DDAL modules are not really 1st party.
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  24. - Top - End - #144
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    Default Re: Devs change - worse content?

    Quote Originally Posted by TyGuy View Post
    I thought DiA was well received. Could it be said that mad max infernal engines did a lot of the heavy lifting of enjoyment? I only got 2-3 sessions in, skipping the pointless intro in BG & jumping straight down, and I thought it was pretty good. I guess I just brought up a red flag, the fact that the intro is so convoluted and pointless.
    Quote Originally Posted by Sigreid View Post
    I hated running that adventure so much I gave the party an out and tried to tempt them to take it.
    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    Could you elaborate on why you hated running it? I have not had much interaction with it at all, but you're the first one I've heard hated running it, so I'm curious what made it so unlikable to you.
    I'm really trying to avoid these comments, as I'm currently playing DiA and (shockingly) it's one of the few published adventures I haven't read, so I get to see it purely as a surprise.

    Interestingly, as a player at least, I've thus far found it to be quite enjoyable.

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    For reference, the party has gotten into Avernus and 2-ish sessions ago got to Fort Knucklebone. Currently, we're outside the fort and just got to Harrowman's Hill. Thus far, as far as I know anyway, everyone is quite enjoying the game and story.
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    Default Re: Devs change - worse content?

    Quote Originally Posted by P. G. Macer View Post
    combined the best of 4e and 3e
    Sorry, I spelled that incorrectly, I'll go and fix my post.
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  26. - Top - End - #146
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    Default Re: Devs change - worse content?

    I just don't see most of the complaints here.

    Maximum cash grabs? Not with the slow pace of release compared to previous WotC editions, and the commitment that everything official see a published released, instead of tons of key content being available only via paid online products as in 4e.

    Questionable balance? I mean, tashas had problems there, but so did the sword coast guide, and that was the very first 5e supplement. honestly, so does the phb. And overall balance in 5e seems markedly better than in 3e, or even much of 4e, if only thanks to the lack of content glut meaning fewer opportunities for truly broken content to slip through.

    Excessive capitulation to left wing identity politics? WotC has been sanding off the more out of touch corners of D&D - and working to make it if not more appealing then at least less repellant to potential new player demographics since they picked the game up in 3e. Whether you approve of these changes or not, there's really nothing new here.

    Not the best adventure modules? Again, wizards has struggled with 1st party modules since day 1 of 3e, with only a few real stand outs (eg Red Hand of Doom in 3e, or Curse of Strahd in 5e). Paizo was able to launch pathfinder in no small part thanks to their already firmly established reputation for making better adventure modules than WotC back in 3e.

    I will admit that Campaign Supplements have been unusually sub par by WotC era D&D in 5e, with the very recent Spelljammer set being probably the worst of the bunch so far. There have been a couple very solid exceptions - Eberron in particular has a very nice 5e campaign book, and the Ravenloft book is decent, albeit more of a 'running adventures of a particular theme' book rather than a 'here is a coherent and detailed fantasy world to adventure in' traditional campaign supplement. And the Ravnica book isn't too bad, though it does coast a bit too hard on ravnica itself being a cool concept more than the campaign supplement itself bringing the setting to life in a particularly effective way, and while it was probably a marketing mandate rather than a creative choice, it was still a mistake to set the D&D setting for Ravnica in the degenerate last days of the Guild system as per the then contemporary MtG Ravnica release - where several of the guilds had degenerated into parodies of themselves utterly divorced from the guild's initial civic purpose. This made it much harder than it should have been to come up with good or even neutral aligned character concepts for like half the guilds...

    I'm wandering off track. The point is, I have no idea how anyone would effectively run a Forgotten Realms using purely or even primarily 5e products. 5e Dragonlance isn't out yet, Greyhawk & Darksun aren't even on the horizon, hopes for planescape are through the floor after seeing what they did with spelljammer. 3e and 4e both blow 5e campaign setting content out of the water. But again, this isn't a new problem that only appeared recently - its a decline since 5e (with, again, a few exceptions), not a decline since Tashas.

    And there have been areas of marked improvement, imo. Despite the the backlash to splitting stat bonuses off from race choice, I still think the overall mechanical design of races in Monsters of the Multiverse is a big step up from what we saw in the early years of 5e. They just do more interesting things that stay relevant at more levels than most early 5e races, while toning down or replacing some problem features.

    I'll admit the lack of cultural, mythological, and narrative background is frustrating. Yes, that stuff can completely change from setting to setting, so a lore block based on Forgotten Realms might be so much wasted ink for games set in Greyhawk or Dragonlance or Mystara or Eberron or Planescape or Ravenloft or Ravnica or what have you. But whether its Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, 4e's 'Points of Light', or otherwise - I still liked there being at least some generic grounding so that if the DM is deviating in the overall setting lore or the player in the background of their individual character that at least they have a shared baseline that they're deviating from.

    But again, the actual mechanical implementations? Some of the best in D&D imo. It's a shame that 5e is nearing its end, because I still have dozens of ideas for characters I wanted to try based on new racial implementations in MotM, and I'm not going to have time to get to more than a few of them. And it's worth noting that many of those ideas wouldn't have worked nearly as well with fixed racial stat bonuses.

    ...

    So I'm not saying that there aren't valid criticisms to be made of WotC's handling of D&D or of 5e in particular, but most of the complaints I've seen online since Tasha's release either don't seem valid or, if they are valid, they don't reflect anything new that's changed about D&D or WotC since Tasha's.

  27. - Top - End - #147
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    Default Re: Devs change - worse content?

    Quote Originally Posted by Sception View Post
    I will admit that Campaign Supplements have been unusually sub par by WotC era D&D in 5e, with the very recent Spelljammer set being probably the worst of the bunch so far. There have been a couple very solid exceptions - Eberron in particular has a very nice 5e campaign book, and the Ravenloft book is decent, albeit more of a 'running adventures of a particular theme' book rather than a 'here is a coherent and detailed fantasy world to adventure in' traditional campaign supplement. And the Ravnica book isn't too bad, though it does coast a bit too hard on ravnica itself being a cool concept more than the campaign supplement itself bringing the setting to life in a particularly effective way, and while it was probably a marketing mandate rather than a creative choice, it was still a mistake to set the D&D setting for Ravnica in the degenerate last days of the Guild system as per the then contemporary MtG Ravnica release - where several of the guilds had degenerated into parodies of themselves utterly divorced from the guild's initial civic purpose. This made it much harder than it should have been to come up with good or even neutral aligned character concepts for like half the guilds...

    I'm wandering off track. The point is, I have no idea how anyone would effectively run a Forgotten Realms using purely or even primarily 5e products. 5e Dragonlance isn't out yet, Greyhawk & Darksun aren't even on the horizon, hopes for planescape are through the floor after seeing what they did with spelljammer. 3e and 4e both blow 5e campaign setting content out of the water. But again, this isn't a new problem that only appeared recently - its a decline since 5e (with, again, a few exceptions), not a decline since Tashas.

    And there have been areas of marked improvement, imo. Despite the the backlash to splitting stat bonuses off from race choice, I still think the overall mechanical design of races in Monsters of the Multiverse is a big step up from what we saw in the early years of 5e. They just do more interesting things that stay relevant at more levels than most early 5e races, while toning down or replacing some problem features.

    I'll admit the lack of cultural, mythological, and narrative background is frustrating. Yes, that stuff can completely change from setting to setting, so a lore block based on Forgotten Realms might be so much wasted ink for games set in Greyhawk or Dragonlance or Mystara or Eberron or Planescape or Ravenloft or Ravnica or what have you. But whether its Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, 4e's 'Points of Light', or otherwise - I still liked there being at least some generic grounding so that if the DM is deviating in the overall setting lore or the player in the background of their individual character that at least they have a shared baseline that they're deviating from.

    But again, the actual mechanical implementations? Some of the best in D&D imo. It's a shame that 5e is nearing its end, because I still have dozens of ideas for characters I wanted to try based on new racial implementations in MotM, and I'm not going to have time to get to more than a few of them. And it's worth noting that many of those ideas wouldn't have worked nearly as well with fixed racial stat bonuses.

    ...

    So I'm not saying that there aren't valid criticisms to be made of WotC's handling of D&D or of 5e in particular, but most of the complaints I've seen online since Tasha's release either don't seem valid or, if they are valid, they don't reflect anything new that's changed about D&D or WotC since Tasha's.
    This is kind of where I am, too.
    On the mechanics end, I've liked or even loved most of the Tasha's and beyond content, with a few exceptions. Twilight "All That And Both Bonus Proficiencies, Too" Cleric being a big one. ;P
    Hell, my biggest problem with the Spelljammer books isn't the content, its the lack of content. I like what I got, but I want way more of it! I appreciate they at least fixed the Giff into having at least one firearm-based racial feature rather than the shapeless mass that was their UA version.
    The Tasha's race stat bonus customization rules I'll defend to my last, since I think it lets races stand more on their actual features rather than their pure stats. Makes some of the PHB races seem a bit bland in comparison to some of the MotM options, but still, extra proficiencies and/or skills are never a bad thing to have, so I still see most of them as being competitive, and certainly more competitive than if they had immovable stats.

    My biggest problem with post Tasha's releases is the lack of lore. Like in general I don't like the concept of removing digital content like they did with Volo's and MToF, it feels like I'm being gaslit by a product line. While most of the MotM renditions of the Volo's races are straight upgrades, I liked having the option to have an old-style Hobgoblin with Tasha's rules'd racial stats, if I wanted the weapon/light armor proficiencies more than the Fey Gift, for whatever reason. I think both should be able to exist.
    But in particular, throwing out both those books entirely, and not reprinting any of their respective lore in MotM? That definitely feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, to me.
    Like sure, maybe Not All Orcs/Dwarves/Elves are as described in these lore sections, or have the pantheons described therein, but I like them as jumping off points and inspirations.
    Sure, I can make up my own orc culture, but I could always do that, and I don't always have the time to come up with something wholly original, so maybe I do a variation on the Gruumsh-worshiping orcs where Gruumsh isn't a cruel elf-hating taskmaster and is a more "tough but fair" god, in the vein of Crom in the Conan movies.
    That shared baseline to deviate from I think is an unalloyed good. I like having something to measure my own characters/campaign settings by.

    The one thing in particular that I find the most consistently frustrating of the lack of lore, however, is the increasing abundance of "do it yourself" cop outs.
    Like I read through a few of the adventures/settings in the Radiant Citadel book, and I rather liked them, in fact. My problem is that in crucial areas of the settings they'd cop out and say "YOU make the call!", and I'm left sitting there annoyed like,
    "That was always an option for me to do; I'm paying you to tell me what your answer is!"
    In particular the second adventure, "Written in Blood" describes the local culture of Godsbreath as venerating a specific pantheon of five gods, and how central this religion is to the local culture, and I was intrigued, like "Ooh, what are these gods like?"
    And then the book said ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    Which kind of undercut the idea of how important this pantheon is to this culture if you don't have any kind of alignment or even domains for these gods to have.
    It's to the point I'm sorely tempted to try and contact the person who wrote that adventure to ask if they have any ideas about who the five gods would be that were just cut from the book in a misguided attempt at to be more "modular."
    Like I still like the setting of Godsbreath as presented, but much like Spelljammer, I want more of it.
    Spelljammer had the most egregious case of this, where the section on designing a planetary system it went ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and gestured towards the ones from the adventure book. Which wasn't exactly a satisfying answer.

    Like if they could just hand me a couple more tables of like, suggested ideas, then I wouldn't complain about this in particular so much. Fizban's had more than enough inspiration tables for my taste, but the Spelljammer book didn't even give me the tables for suggested characteristics for the presented backgrounds, which smacked of laziness.

    And the weirdest part is, I don't usually run settings 100% as presented myself? I very much follow Keith Baker's idea of "In My [Setting]", where there's the setting as presented in the book, and then there's the setting as you've customized it to your tastes and the needs of your table. But with the recent books, it's like I can't even do this since they're not giving me the whole of the details of the setting to deviate from in the first place! Eugh.

    Again, mechanics, I think have generally been pretty great. But the lore and fluff in general seem to have really fallen off in the last couple books in particular, I dunno. Fizban's didn't have this problem, and neither did Ravenloft (which I like most of the new versions of the old settings, for the record, though I do think a Ravenloft Zombie Apocalypse setting could've been its own thing without replacing with the Bleak Dystopic Military Horror the original Falkovnia was doing), so I don't know if they're just not being given enough time for the fluffier parts of the books now or what.
    Last edited by Polyphemus; 2022-11-16 at 04:54 PM.

  28. - Top - End - #148
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    Default Re: Devs change - worse content?

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    Could you elaborate on why you hated running it? I have not had much interaction with it at all, but you're the first one I've heard hated running it, so I'm curious what made it so unlikable to you.
    I found Hell boring and uninspired. A lot of the party just kind of wandering because they had no idea. The maps were irritating to work at. And the whole thing ended with a confrontation with a foe that was literally unbeatable by the party that resulted in a party wipe when the D20 was one pip lower than it needed to be. The whole thing was unsatisfying.
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  29. - Top - End - #149
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    Default Re: Devs change - worse content?

    Quote Originally Posted by Polyphemus View Post
    "That was always an option for me to do; I'm paying you to tell me what your answer is!"
    That’s pretty funny, I agree.

    The Tasha's race stat bonus customization rules I'll defend to my last, since I think it lets races stand more on their actual features rather than their pure stats.
    I’ve got your back on that one!

    Again, mechanics, I think have generally been pretty great. But the lore and fluff in general seem to have really fallen off in the last couple books in particular… so I don't know if they're just not being given enough time for the fluffier parts of the books now or what.
    This. They have put most of their effort into cleaning up mechanics (and maybe balance over time, with One). Lots of people, especially newer players (with exceptions, of course), couldn’t care less about whether or not the pantheon of deities is fleshed out as long as they can understand what their PC does.

    To be fair, the thing this community argues the most about is by far the mechanics of the game (or the terminology and placement of said mechanics).
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  30. - Top - End - #150
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    Default Re: Devs change - worse content?

    Quote Originally Posted by Sigreid View Post
    I found Hell boring and uninspired. A lot of the party just kind of wandering because they had no idea. The maps were irritating to work at. And the whole thing ended with a confrontation with a foe that was literally unbeatable by the party that resulted in a party wipe when the D20 was one pip lower than it needed to be. The whole thing was unsatisfying.
    Yeah, I can see why that would be miserable. Especially when the party is wandering around without a clue what to do and the maps aren't helping the DM make it any clearer to them, as you described it.

    Sorry that was your experience with it, but thanks for sharing it with us.

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