5th Edition Renaissance?

[Duke Bushido]

I may have misunderstood your intended point.  I thought you were suggesting people who didn't like D&D give it another go; I was explaining why most of us don't: no matter what has changed, there is something of the core that remains, and that's what we are going to notice above all, and we are already prejudiced to notice the things we didn't like first of all.

 

 

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Don't get me wrong, D&D is still not a very good system.  Its mostly handwaving still, it still uses single die resolution, it still relies mostly on HPs and AC, and so on.  But its much more flexible, smart, and better than it used to be.

 

And as a bit of a chef, I have tried dozens of ways to try to make brussels sprouts edible but they're terrible no matter what you do.  You can at best make them less terrible.

[Ninja-Bear]

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

I may have misunderstood your intended point.  I thought you were suggesting people who didn't like D&D give it another go; I was explaining why most of us don't: no matter what has changed, there is something of the core that remains, and that's what we are going to notice above all, and we are already prejudiced to notice the things we didn't like first of all.

 

 

 

 

No, what I was saying is that you shouldn’t assume the other person’s experience and edition.

[Opal]

I started with 1st, with the typewriter-looking font, but by the time I got to play it, 2nd was out, then 3rd by the time I got to play in regular games.

By then, GMs I gamed with were mixing skills &c from the other Hero games as well, and it was messy.

 

4e, the BBB, feels like the definitive edition that brought it all together.

 

But even with the BBB, it seemed like skills were getting out of hand, and it was taking far too many points to just be generally competent at whatever throwaway background or secret id you might have.

5th seemed even worse that way,  what I've seen of 6th looks to be far beyond the pale.

 

Sometimes I think even the small handful of skills in 1st would be preferable.

[Scott Ruggels]

16 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I may have misunderstood your intended point.  I thought you were suggesting people who didn't like D&D give it another go; I was explaining why most of us don't: no matter what has changed, there is something of the core that remains, and that's what we are going to notice above all, and we are already prejudiced to notice the things we didn't like first of all.

 

I an currently laying two games of D&D 5e, on th weekends. Two different campaigns and GMs, but an overlap of players. D&D 5e, ad is currently is very streamlined, with not a lot of options, and is simpler than 3.5. The problem I have is that because no one was running Hero when the CCP Virus hit, none of the online options other than Tabletop Simulator, currently run it well, Until  the Roll20 effort finally bore fruit just before Christmas.   However about 5e, is that you won't like it, as it's D&D with races and classes, and levels. The arge population of normies out there was attracted to it, because of the Virus, and it was easy to run online.  I don't have the bandwidth at the moment to run much of anything, but some of the D&D players want me to run Cyberpunk Red, because I know the rules fairly well. I'd like to run Hero, but there is a lot of resistance to it.  As for the D&D games, well WoTC is making D&D more unattractive with it's hard progressive push in dismantling Racial Essentialism from the game, and introducing a lot of (to me, unattractive non- Combat situations). I am half tempted to write up a Celebration of Colonialism 5e adventure, just for spite.

[Scott Ruggels]

4 minutes ago, Opal said:

I started with 1st, with the typewriter-looking font, but by the time I got to play it, 2nd was out, then 3rd by the time I got to play in regular games.

By then, GMs I gamed with were mixing skills &c from the other Hero games as well, and it was messy.

 

4e, the BBB, feels like the definitive edition that brought it all together.

 

But even with the BBB, it seemed like skills were getting out of hand, and it was taking far too many points to just be generally competent at whatever throwaway background or secret id you might have.

5th seemed even worse that way,  what I've seen of 6th looks to be far beyond the pale.

 

Sometimes I think even the small handful of skills in 1st would be preferable.

 This is one of my biggest complaint about editions after 4th, where skills became a vicious point sink, because of the specialization.  1st Edition: Physician 14 or less.  3rd Edition: Medic : 11 or less, Surgeon 11or less. 4th Edition  Medic 11 or less, Pharmacology 11 or less, Surgeon 11 or less.  6th Edition: General Medicine 8 or less Pharmacology 8 or less. Trauma medicine 11 or less, Thoracic Surgery 11 or less, Cardio Vascular Catheterization 11 or less, Teamwork 13 or less.  It gets expensive.  It's that specialization that just became a point sink, and detracted from the  feeling of "Competence" that player characters had in previous editions. There is I think too much detail past 4th edition. and separating figured characteristics was not friendly to new players. THe figured demopnstrated to them what was important in the gem, which was CON, STR, and DEX. Without that, a lot of folks end up unintentionally building glass cannons.

[Opal]

On 1/16/2022 at 6:07 PM, LoneWolf said:

Try using a 1st edition AD&D monster is a current edition of D&D

I had occasion to do that, just inverted AC, and it worked. 

Only works at the lowest levels, though.

 

23 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

they've made it a lot more like Hero over the years (especially 3rd edition).

3e D&D did introduce a lot of 'build' options, and 4e even allowed something comparable to hero "special effects."  But the current edition walked back or bowdlerized all that, and is a lot more like say, AD&D, again.  (At least AC isn't back to lower is better.)

 

On 1/17/2022 at 4:18 PM, zslane said:

newcomers to TTRPGs start with something else, like D&D. That's how it went for me; I went from AD&D (1e)

The current D&D, 5e, is very nearly as bad an introduction to the hobby as AD&D was. It's like a hazing tradition, just because we survived it, doesn't mean we should inflict it on others.

(And, staring with Hero could work, just start with pregens who are all the same speed 😊 )

 

 

Wow, too much D&D, sorry, but from 2000 on, for various reasons I've found myself playing & running a lot more D&D than Hero. 😧

[Christopher R Taylor]

I think there's a good middle ground for skills between 3rd and 6th.  You can get by with PS: Physician and Paramedics, all the rest is just window dressing.  The problem is the dial downs in stuff like Gambling and Survival.  Do you really need different skills for Baccarat and Craps?  I get that survival skills vary from jungle and forest and ocean but... in terms of game play and just having fun its not really adding anything to the game to break it down that specifically.

[Opal]

39 minutes ago, Scott Ruggels said:

 This is one of my biggest complaint about editions after 4th, where skills became a vicious point sink, because of the specialization

I've often thought it would be nice to have broader skills that are more expensive but subsumed all the lower-point specialuzed and open-ended ones.

 

To be a specialist you'd buy a narrower, lower point skill, and levels.

 

But to be broadly competent, and have a specialty you're particularly good at,  you'd buy the high point skill, but some extra lower-point levels in the specialty.  Instead of scads of little knowledge and professional skills and whatnot.

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

12 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

 This is one of my biggest complaint about editions after 4th, where skills became a vicious point sink, because of the specialization.  1st Edition: Physician 14 or less.  3rd Edition: Medic : 11 or less, Surgeon 11or less. 4th Edition  Medic 11 or less, Pharmacology 11 or less, Surgeon 11 or less.  6th Edition: General Medicine 8 or less Pharmacology 8 or less. Trauma medicine 11 or less, Thoracic Surgery 11 or less, Cardio Vascular Catheterization 11 or less, Teamwork 13 or less.  

 

12 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I think there's a good middle ground for skills between 3rd and 6th.  You can get by with PS: Physician and Paramedics, all the rest is just window dressing.  The problem is the dial downs in stuff like Gambling and Survival.  Do you really need different skills for Baccarat and Craps?  I get that survival skills vary from jungle and forest and ocean but... in terms of game play and just having fun its not really adding anything to the game to break it down that specifically.

 

 

These.

 

So very much both of these.  This is the sort of creep of the "just because we can doesn't mean we should" variety.  I know i am in the minority, so I wont ponrificate on it elsewhere in newer editions, particularly in kight of the "it still plays /feels the same" majority opinion, but I would like to say that this problem isnt just with Skills as the editions get longer and less penetrable-  literally: "we proves definitively that the last obe will stop a bullet.  Let's make the next one four times as thick."

 

I do agree that Skills _is certainly_ the most obvious area where this is happening.  For years, I have rooted for an in-the-book discussion of this problem, because there really isn't explanation of it at all beyond "and if this isn't enough, here are three generic categories you can make to add your own!"  (Don't mistake my meaning here; I think that is a good thing, but again: it needs to be put into perspective.

 

There should be a discussion of generalization, specialization, and hiw they affect the game,in play, in character expertise, and even in points level requirements.  It is entirely possible to spend two hundred points in skills and still not be able to perform rudimentary functions:  all you to do is over-specialize.   Do you have Janitor:14 or less, or do you have "get that weird yellow-green film out of the tiles,behind flush-valve actuated public toilets 14 or less?

 

Huunting, fishing, tracking, buikd a fire, forage, familiarity with local flora, familiarity with local fauna, camoflauge, find water, build temporary shelters, skin game, sanitation- all at 14 or less?

 

Or Survival at 14 or less?

 

Or woodland Survival?

 

There needs to be a discussion of this in the rules if open-ended roll-your-own skills are going to be the HERO way to do things.  Not in supplemental materials- though that would be an ideal,place to really break thijgs down- but right in either the how-to-skills section or the campaign guidelines section.

 

 

 

 

[zslane]

12 hours ago, Opal said:

The current D&D, 5e, is very nearly as bad an introduction to the hobby as AD&D was.

 

Sorry, but I can't agree at all with the above assessment. I had tremendous fun with AD&D 1e and 2e throughout the 1980s, even after my heart had moved on to Champions. Considering that an awful lot (if not most) of new TTRPG players today get "introduced" to the hobby through Critical Role, D&D is going to be the main entry point regardless of how well it stacks up to better systems anyway.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Having said that about skills, I deliberately made some of the skills in the Field Guide for trades expensive and granular.  Herbalism is so powerful and can do so much that I wanted it to be limited or at least costly to be good at it in a lot of different areas.  Its a balance issue, so each general area (ocean, jungle, etc) has a 1 point familiarity.

[Spence]

Thoughts on D&D

I don't consider D&D as being "broken" at all. 

Well, except for 4th edition. 

That was definitionally broken garbage that should burn in the eternity of RPG hell .   

But back to D&D as a whole.  I may no longer enjoy it as much, but I don't think it is broken.   Like other games I do not enjoy playing (D&D 3.8 aka Pathfinder, Fate etc), they are not "broken" because they achieve what they are trying to.  They may be too restricted or too loose for my gaming style, but that doesn't mean they are broken.

The current D&D game mechanics are one of D&D's better version IMO.  Still not a candle to Hero, 2D20, CoC, GUMSHOE.  But a good rule set none the less and fun to play. 

Of course the company is in full bore self destruction mode.  But hey, the ramifications of it are something for the next 5-8 years. 

 

Thoughts on Skills

I have always thought that the ultra excessive depth of the Hero skill system as portrayed by 5thR and 6th were far too much to be useful in an actual game. 

But!

Yes but.

It is an excellent system to tailor a specific skill system for a specific game/campaign.

In my supers games I tend to stay on the upped tiers.  Such as Average Category for Knowledge and Field or maybe Discipline for Sciences.  In my super games the Superscientist is just that.  A Superscientist.  Engineering - check.  This is SUPER adventure in a SUPER world and the SUPERscientist is just that.  They don't need to buy every possible subtitle that can be considered engineering because the are a SUPERscientist.

 

For Fantasy Hero games I usually select a narrow list of campaign titled skills that resemble the ones you would see in D&D that the players pick from.   Later after they have played a bit and have a grasp of Hero as a game I open the game to further customization.  But I never ever ever turn players loose with the Hero Skill system un-throttled.   It is far too easy to get lost in the minutia and wind up spending half your points on irrelevant and needed sub-specialties.  Kind of like a modern degree post 90's.  20% general knowledge/skills, 30% professionally relevant knowledge/skills, 50% ludicrously irreverent fraudulent horse-sh*t, all at a premium price.  But that is another topic of non-discussion.

 

[Ninja-Bear]

Did anyone else catch that in 6th it is easier to add Damage Classes from martial maneuvers to killing attacks? It’s one for one now 😀

[Spence]

8 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Did anyone else catch that in 6th it is easier to add Damage Classes from martial maneuvers to killing attacks? It’s one for one now 😀

It is?  I actually never noticed to tell the truth.  I guess I had been playing Hero for so long I never found it hard in 5thR. 

 

But I never really went too far into 6th so I can't really say.  May take a look and see if it is worth stealing for my hybrid 5thR games.

[Duke Bushido]

 

 

If I can make an aside request; a quick google turned up nothing particularly useful, and a lot of contradiction.

 

18 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Racial Essentialism 

 

 

If it's not too much trouble, Scott, can I get you to define that term as you are using it?

 

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

They don't need to buy every possible subtitle that can be considered engineering because the are a SUPERscientist.

 

Yeah, when I was working on the Island of Dr Destroyer, I pulled up the 6th edition build of the Doc and its like 3 pages of skills.  EVERY science conceivable he has at 18-.  I get that you want to be completist and all that but... really?  Does he really need Molecular Biology and Biology and Virology and Biological Experimenter and Biological Conservation and Biology... you get the idea.  Just... say he's a scientist with Inventor and that's good enough.  How big must Reed Richards' character sheet be?  (or, in the MCU, Tony Stark, super genius expert better than all others in every possible field).

[Duke Bushido]

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Yeah, when I was working on the Island of Dr Destroyer, I pulled up the 6th edition build of the Doc and its like 3 pages of skills.  EVERY science conceivable he has at 18-.  I get that you want to be completist and all that but... really?  Does he really need Molecular Biology and Biology and Virology and Biological Experimenter and Biological Conservation and Biology... you get the idea.  Just... say he's a scientist with Inventor and that's good enough.  How big must Reed Richards' character sheet be?  (or, in the MCU, Tony Stark, super genius expert better than all others in every possible field).

 

 

Excellent examples-- picking from that particular universe, I mean, because I recall that Marvel Superheroes (yellow box from years and years ago) had a character sheet somewhere for Dr. Doom (and I think we all know who Destroyer is an homage to   ).   Anyone still have that game?  Anyone have Dr. Doom's honest-to-God character sheet?   How many bajillion skills does the good doctor have in "his own universe," as it were?

 

 

[Mr. R]

19 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I think there's a good middle ground for skills between 3rd and 6th.  You can get by with PS: Physician and Paramedics, all the rest is just window dressing.  The problem is the dial downs in stuff like Gambling and Survival.  Do you really need different skills for Baccarat and Craps?  I get that survival skills vary from jungle and forest and ocean but... in terms of game play and just having fun its not really adding anything to the game to break it down that specifically.

I agree.  I have been making some FH characters using Hero designer and every time I got to Survival or Forgery, and the HUGE specialization window, I went Bleep It.  My Savage Tribesman from a desert environment bordering a HUGE mountain range is getting Survival 3pt.  I am not going to nitpic "But what if he ever gets to the Jungle, HuH?"  That's what modifiers are for!

[Mr. R]

6 hours ago, Spence said:

Thoughts on D&D

 

Of course the company is in full bore self destruction mode.  But hey, the ramifications of it are something for the next 5-8 years. 

 

 

 

 

Maybe I am sheltered, and I don't mean to diverge the thread, BUT, what are you talking about?  I am serious, am I missing something happening in DnDlandia?

[Christopher R Taylor]

I get what Steve Long was going for: here's everything you'll ever need for any conceivable kind of game.  Fine, its the Big Book of Hero that has all the stuff, maybe you want to play a Gambler Hero game where people need those gambling skills, sure.

But that should be reflected in genre books and campaign settings: fewer skills listed because fewer are needed for this setting.

[zslane]

If you want to see another good example of character specification bloat, compare the write-up for Mechanon from 1e Champions to the write-up for Mechanon from 6e Champions. You can see the incremental growth of the bloat with each edition of the game. And while I would probably agree with the opinion that 1e Mechanon is a bit under-specified, I feel that all sanity left the building by the time of 6e.

[Scott Ruggels]

3 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

If I can make an aside request; a quick google turned up nothing particularly useful, and a lot of contradiction.

 

 

 

If it's not too much trouble, Scott, can I get you to define that term as you are using it?

 

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

 

 Sure.

 In the D&D Context, it is about how the various races in the 2014 Players Handbook have  Pluses and minuses to various stats based on the race the player chooses.  Humans don't modify their stats, but get two Feats.  Other races just get one Feat, but have adjustments to their stats. It also sets the general alignment charts for Non- Player Races, and Monsters. Tasha's Cauldron of Everything was the first attempt to remove that, by allowing all races to be modified, and also not bound by the alignment table. As such they want to remove the meta of choosing the best race for the classes, so that anyone can be a druid, or an Artificer, or a Ranger.  The New book is trying to push things further, by making things more P.C.  Recent Adventures like Candlekeep Mysteries, and the new one about the Magic School, are very much about relationships, rather than combat. The Magic School one, even had a Prom.

Source:
https://www.polygon.com/22883750/dnd-monsters-of-the-multiverse-6e?fbclid=IwAR3_OnWWq6mrnJg3qYhaIWon4Am5uJW_FyQJkENXks0AsMCgqVHdZrSCx_U

57 minutes ago, zslane said:

If you want to see another good example of character specification bloat, compare the write-up for Mechanon from 1e Champions to the write-up for Mechanon from 6e Champions. You can see the incremental growth of the bloat with each edition of the game. And while I would probably agree with the opinion that 1e Mechanon is a bit under-specified, I feel that all sanity left the building by the time of 6e.

That Bloat isn't just skills. It's also some powers in 6th Edition, and other powers simplification was just awkward, like "Barrier".

[Ninja-Bear]

Barrier also took me a moment or two to figure out but I get what he is doing. And it’s consistent with “you get what you pay for”.

[Ninja-Bear]

Oh and about skills bloat. Shouldn’t we blame games like Fantasy Hero and Danger International? I mean it was the the Heroic level games that introduced all those skills! 😁