We’re just not that into you - the three reasons YOU gave for leaving 5th edition
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.พ. 2025
- A response to your comments to my 3 Reasons for leaving 5th edition video (link below). Thank you so much for your engagement and please remember to Like and Subscribe if you enjoy my content.
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Any specific reason you prefer BECMI over say 0DnD or B/X? What is your overall opinion on OSD and S&W?
Yes. Ultimately it’s a complete game. It supports play from vulnerable nobodies up to heroes seeking immortality. The BECMI rules include mechanics for owning land and going to war, and also includes a weapon mastery system for those who want it, as well as details on incredibly powerful items called Artefacts. In between all this there is a wealth of support material, such as the 42 BECMI adventure modules (12 Basic, 13 Expert, 9 Companion, 5 Master, 3 Immortal), the 14 detailed Gazetteers about nations/peoples in the known world (Mystara), an expanded campaign setting called Hollow World (because Mystara is hollow) with several adventures of its own, and expanded character options through the four-book Creature Crucible series.
Like any edition, it is far from perfect. The Thief class is frequently referred to as broken, but this was the case for B/X also. However, many people still enjoy playing Thieves. Also, some players reading old school materials frequently have lots of questions that aren’t covered in the rules, but I think this is just a consequence of the early game not having significant playtesting and having to hit difficult deadlines. Players dealt with this by filling the cracks themselves. That’s not to say players back then were any better at this. I’m sure if there was an internet back then we would have voiced our points of view. However, without this option, players just got on with it - they had to.
I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to pin this post as I think it’s a really good question. Thanks for commenting.
@@becmiberserker "It supports play from vulnerable nobodies up to heroes seeking immortality."
This warrants a different question and I am sincere although it might seem dismissive at first. Is high level play in Old Scholl DnD all that? I ask because lategame is fairly frowned upon in modern DnD due to players becoming super powerful and combat being very difficult to balance (not to mention a sheer slogfest).
@@Mrmcroller Its both better and worse balanced, the players are more balanced towards the enemies/environment but way way less balanced compared to each other, and this creates in modern players, and hell even in old school back in the day, an unacceptable level of party jealousy and resentment. But at the time, we didnt have anything better. You would need a group that isnt going to walk when things go wrong and an iron fist GM to keep control.
Actually I dropped d&d in favor of The Dark Eye RPG, which is way more solid and still sort of old school. Everything is extremely well balanced.
@@flbellmani play DSA since the late 80s, all editions from 1984 to Ilaris and The Black Cat (soooo adorable and deadly...) 2e started the game's most favourable strength and infamous weakness, the skill system. It is a three-dimensional nightmare of possibility and statistics every analyst without SPSS will sing epic songs about 😉 I admit, 3e is one of my favourite games - but things like summoning and controlling an extra planar entity, artifact creation, or a simple contest of skill like sneaking against perception easily get unpredictable... 4e and 5e DSA are a pointbuy orgy (all praise Rhaja!) of character stats. I admit - I have never ever even tried building a 4/5e character by the books without Optolith or Helden Software. And even with those tools, it may take many hours to build a character. I have never seen characters of that detail anywhere else ( well, maybe Hero System). But modern DSA left behind what they intended in 2014, simplicity. 4e was a rules behemoth, but 5e got even worse, splitting up the place where one might find magical character types across a bunch of books, same for divine types. Yes, Markus always says, you can play everything just with the Basic Rules and the Almanac. But DSA players want detail and more detail of detail. special skills, meta stuff. Detail is King in DSA and ulisses reacted by publishing all-in-one books - again, like the Ways of - tomes in 4e. DSA is great when you reach the point the character is ready to play. Most DSA players create most detailed background stories for them, which easily fill a couple of pages. But in my opinion DSA 4 and 5 are the epitome of not- retro. DSA is mostly simulationists, the world has a continuous metaplot and is massively over detailed. Because the majority of the community loves it that way. DSA has always been a community driven game, even handing baronies to players and cons for official barons etc. To me all this has gone far over the top, but the Aventuria Police won't come for you if your game is different. But many tables want their games run the official way and in correct order etc ( like phileason saga, year of the griffon, raven and lion, borbarad campings etc)
The three that burn me the most are.
1. There is no longer any fear of the undead anymore.
2. There is no longer any fear of poison.
3. Getting to make a save attempt vs spells or what ever over and over again.
I could go on but you get the idea.
That first one hurts my soul.
People tend to disagree with undead having level drain
But the fear it caused is second to none.
The only 5e Undead players fear now is the Ghost when it ages you 1d4*10 years.
There's no fear of ANYTHING. It's so hard to kill characters in 5e. Believe me, I've tried really hard.
@@iantaran2843 Level drain was stupid, really stupid.... the thing that broke me on this was... players got level drained, restored, killed the wight, and we stopped for over an hour trying to figure out how much xp the characters had after all of it was over. After that HOUSE RULE, level drain only makes you function as a levels lower for a number of weeks equal to the number of levels drained, xp continues to accumulate normally.... this still had fear, but without game stopping math. This was AD&D not BECMI.
@@Kconv1 Personally that math was never confusing to me.
Like THAC0, it's really simple I just think people don't like math with more than one step.
I understand WHY people hate it because I was once of that same opinion.
Enough running and playing I have realized that no mechanic strikes more fear into the players.
It leads to more planning and tactics.
BUT if your all about combat I can understand that.
I don't play D&D as a video game so it doesn't really work for me
And that's not even getting into how boring combat becomes when it goes on to long.
I played 1st edition in the 70s and 2nd edition in the 80s, our DM would award Xp for gold, but on a basis for training. An example would be a fighter survives the dungeon with 500 gps. Once back at the town or city, he or she can now exchange all 500 or however much into experience points through training, so a fighter would search out a high level swordsman or gladiator school and pay for training. A wizard would seek out a magic university or a high level wizard. A cleric gives donations to a church of his/her deity or learn from a high priest and a thief can always pay to learn new skills at the shady thieves guild. This made downtime so exciting. After every successful adventure my brother (the DM) would ask us where we would like to try and learn our new skills. Our imaginations went wild and it made our games more realistic. Great fun.
Just ran a B/X game this past weekend, had 11 players. Everyone knows I only run old school d&d and I never have an empty table. The style of play and engagement are certainly things I hear from those coming in from newer versions.
Love your BECMI stuff!
And you're probably a really great GM who can run double-digit tables and keep all players invested.
Similar thing happened to my Temple of Elemental Evil game. I was seeing engagement from players that would have never shown the same excitement for a 5e game. I hope you had just as much fun as your players!
\m/ \m/
My biggest issue with it is that it offers too many "solutions" to problems that only exist if you allow the players to run the game and don't have a DM who says, "Sorry... but no!" once in a while.
When you have 4 or 6 classes, then you if want to play a fearsome pact bound Dreadlord using Hell magic... you choose a "Magic User" and you PLAY the character that way.
In 5e they sell you a supplement with that special class.
Sure you could play a "Warlock" cos that's ALMOST identical, but... you know the name's not quite the same, and I want a "Pact-Mace" because that's how my deals are done with Demons! And if Hasbro can sell you the specific thing you want... and you're daft enough to buy it...
It's as if every possible option and outcome has been run through a computer and they just went with the most likely 80% and and slowly feed them out until the game reaches maximum power creep and rules bloat... then sell you the same stuff with a different number on the book/box and some tweaks for "Balance".
Every new edition (and this WILL happen with 6E/One D&D) they try to "fix" the "No one ever starts at first level" problem and make first level even more powerful than it was in the last edition...
But Players STILL have the mindset that "We need to start with some experience..." so they will just continue to start at 3rd or 5th, and then finish the campaign before they hit 7th... because it all become repetitive and boring.
5E is a "Super-powered, Mega-Furry, Turbo-Anime, MMO Table Top Battle-Sim." And if you are playing it thinking "I'm like the kids from Stranger Things!" You;re not... sorry.
Different games...
(And they played BOTH BECMI and AD&D...)
The fantasy characters my friends and I wanted to be like were Conan, King Arthur, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Elric, etc... these days it's about being Thor (Marvel TM), An Undead Dragonborn Werewolf, some Manga Edgelord or other who is chased by disturbingly inappropriately dressed Japanese schoolgirl... and Kung-Fu Panda.
I'm SO glad I'm old...
There has certainly been a case of redefining classes for copy rights, the like of a: warrior, mage, priest, wizard, barbarian, ranger, thief, assassin, barbarian.
None of them can be copyrighted, there's too much pre existing art.
Same with races elf an dwarf is generic, but a Tiefling is not.
I'm only 30, and I'm in the same group as you. But that's because my dad ran D&D with me when I was like 6 years old and I grew reading Conan, Elric, Dragonlance, Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser, etc... due to my love classic D&D.
I remember trying to play D&D with my friends in high school and they were always pushing things in that direction. "Like Cloud from Final Fantasy. I wanna be a monk like Goku. What class do I pick if I wanna be like Naruto?" And it was frustrating cause I don't wanna ruin their fun and I grew up with that stuff, I liked anime just fine. But I just couldn't communicate to them that THIS wasn't THAT. Lord Of The Rings was really the only frame of reference I could muster for guys my age.
"Plays more like a superhero game" reminds me of 3.5E official fighter class ability substitution where you gained ability to bull rush a foe back into walls to deal MASSIVE amounts of damage.
Hated 3.5 that's where this all started
I really liked 3.5 and Pathfinder… for computer games. Not really appropriate for pen & paper.
I love your card game observation. I'd add something that I heard Questing Beast mention in a video of his (I think it was one of his Ask Dungeon Masters series) where he called this phenomenon "Driving the mech". It hit me the same way. One of the things that strikes me about 5E is that players tend to have their heads in their character sheets and in the mechanics, instead of in the boots of their character there in the room with the monster/trap/obstacle. They are just poring over their byzantine list of nifty abilities for the best lever to pull, the cleverest button to push, to make their character go sparkly and fire off a flashy special ability animation.
I run Castles & Crusades for my setting. Hell, that’s what Gary Gygax ran his home Greyhawk campaign in towards the end.
Not been into D&D for years, but the current drama has encouraged me to dig out my original BECMI plus gazetteers, a full set of them, I have, plus it turns out I still have almost complete sets of 1st and 2nd Ed AD&D. Tempted to see if there's enough people to get a group going.
Do it!
@@becmiberserker or as Palpatine says: “dew it!”
Same. I dug out all my old 1E books, then looked into B/X and BECMI. I think I still like B/X best.
I'm currently in a 5e campaign as a Skeleton Chosen (homebrew that was given the greenlight by the DM who had A LOT of other homebrew stuff) Paladin and I'm basically not only the strongest character, my my AC being nearly 20, and I 3 or 4 healing spells at my disposable, he had to increase the difficultly of the campaign........we're level 2
In my friends 3.5 campaigns where always entertaining, and yeah you make extremely OP characters but we never did, because we new that it would unbalance everything.
My favorite campaign I was apart of used 3.5 and lasted 2 years. We were Hero's chosen by the gods we worshiped, to fight a being that even they feared. There was highs and lows, then there was the really depressing stuff. A prime example of this was that the Paladin(The character not the person and he was also the leader as well) of the group had a sister who was dying of a illness and was only being kept alive by healers performing various spells on her. I made a knowledge check and discovered what the illness was and knew that she would die now matter what, so my character (being a very blunt person) told our Paladin that what his family is doing to her is equal to torture and he cannot be considered a force Law and Good in world if it continues. I volunteered to do the deed and let go in peace, he got VERY angry and used smite on my character through his fist, I just let it hit taking it full force. Then in private the DM and Paladin player discussed something and came back. I was given the greenlight to do so. I made sure to tell them that the deed was done and her soul was at rest. We later found out that she managed to merge with our Paladin's holy blade and it became intelligent.
To be clear I played as a Dread Necromancer that only wish to learn EVERYTHING about the world, its cultures, the people that inhabited, and most importantly all known and forgotten magic.
Our DM gave everyone 500 xp for a amazing RP moment that lasted I think 2 or 3 hours.
I play pathfinder. Always have. The only reason I was even giving 5th was because my friends all were playing it, and I liked playing with my friends. Well, the recent debacle has disillusioned everyone, so we're switching. Thanks, Wizards! You made my friends finally decide to try something different!
Also third parties made a solid ruleset for psionics for Pathfinder.
D&D "editions" play like a Tier system.
Tier 1:1974 up to 1999: Sword & Sorcery with a touch of high fantasy at the back end of TSR's run.
Tier 2: 3rd edition High Fantasy
Tier 3: 3.5 High Fantasy + Epic Fantasy
Tier 4: 5e (0 experience with 4e) Epic Fantasy, Medieval Avengers and Justice League.
The card game comparison was excellent 👌 I've noticed the same thing. 5e also plays like an MMORPG to an extent, and considering 4th Ed, it makes me wonder if that is intentional.
Another good video, Berserker 🤘 keep up the good work. Look forward to your videos 😎
A big factor of the superhero character syndrome is the action economy - allowing a full move, having a full action, then a bonus action (one option being healing word - being able to bring a character back from unconscious from a distance), and a potential reaction. A large table of characters makes combat crawl because everyone’s turn takes so long (pray spellcasters have their actions prepped). It’s worth noting so many of systems that came after DnD cut action economy to move, or move a tiny bit and action.
Ugh. YES. I was in the official 5e 'living' campaign and went to 5th level in 4 sessions. Sure, the dopamine hit was nice, but as I was working through the options I put my sheet down in disgust and thought, "I didn't earn this. I barely even know this guy."
Good points: 5th edition is very simplified. It has a feel good intro to good RP table policies that DM should have already been doing. But that's about it.
But it's a false simplification. First level is so simple most people skip it. All the complexity was shifted to the GM side, and games are harder to run. The balance falls apart at 10th level+.
My reason:
I'm a DM. I'm pretty much done trying to balance campaigns around a bunch of characters that get power creep every two months while all the monsters stay the same. Players get twenty three abilities at the beginning of the game, but if I give all goblins multiattack all of a sudden I'M the one breaking the game.
My second reason: Kyle Brink says guys like me can't leave the hobby fast enough. Wish granted. I piss on Kyle Brink and WotC on my way out the door. I'll just go back to second edition or pathfinder.
My third reason: I'm a DM. I know I mentioned it, but it bears repeating. Too much work, nobody cares.
First edition, dungeons and dragons, Grayhawk source book adventures, has everything you need to create a strong hold in fight armies
Congrats on 2K subs! I'm just over here feeding the algorithm.
"Don't split the Party" - Every good ttrpg players motto
I think the real issue is people want a "one size fits all" system to run games in. No such system exists. Instead, each system/edition should be treated as a way to set the general theme or style of the game. 5e is great for certain themes, but not all. The same is true for BECMI, AD&D, 3e, Pathfinder, OSR, etc. It's all about the style of game you're wanting to run or play.
As for the arguments presented in the video:
1. I find there is actually plenty of things for players to spend gold on, it's just that most DMs don't make use of those rules. That or they severely cut the costs of those items or services because players want to hoard gold that they're never going to use otherwise. You can make magic items, learn spells, train to acquire new skills, hire servants and soldiers, make large purchases like a keep or a ship and more. I think the main issue is that most DMs for 5e (and the players) don't read most of the books whatsoever, they just watch their favorite live play to learn the game and wing it from there.
2. Continuous adventuring is a problem, however, I've found it can be easily solved by not having events of dire importance constantly happening. If you want a big threat, have it be slow moving, but not to the point where it's essentially in limbo until the players interact with it. More like the threat is playing the long game, but nearing the completion of their plans by the time the players first learn of them. As for leveling too quickly, I would say this is solved by not having the campaign move at a breakneck pace and actually keeping track of overland travel and in-game time. The 5e game I've been running for the past 4 years has only recently seen the players achieve 9th level, with over a year of in-game time having passed. This might be seen as "too quick" depending on your tastes, but some of that I would also attribute to my inexperience as a DM at the start of the campaign. Again, inexperience of the DM being a huge factor I've noticed in what people think is wrong with 5e as a game that never gets addressed.
3. I don't see the characters being super powerful as much of an issue because most of the monsters are similarly powerful. Combat in any edition breaks down to just people hitting each other with sticks so I don't really see the argument there. It's ultimately up to player creativity in combat that will make it interesting and I can't genuinely say any edition does a great job of encouraging people to be creative in combat. For AD&D (and BECMI, assuming combats works in a similar way) it's literally just hitting people with sticks until one side is dead or their morale has broken, in 3e it's all about trying to engineer scenarios where your feats can work regardless of the scenario and hitting people with sticks, and in 5e it's about letting your abilities do most of the work for you then hitting people with sticks. The DM can make combat a bit more dynamic based on how they play monsters, the environments they have the combat take place in, and if they know monsters are more than just XP piñatas or not. Again, it comes down to how much experience the DM has in running the game.
I think the main issue with 5e is that it's so popular. Because of this, tons of people who don't know what they're doing are playing the game. This is fine, but it does artificially manifest a lot of problems that otherwise wouldn't be there. There are definitely legitimate problems with 5e as a system, it is by no means perfect. I've been wanting to branch out into AD&D 2e because it looks fun, and I want to experience more games. This isn't because I stopped enjoying 5e, I just want to try more things. Heck, my main issue with 5e isn't even concerning the game itself, it's the player entitlement that I see constantly. When most of the content creators for a game place heavy emphasis on players being able to do whatever they want, they're going to get upset whenever they're told "no, the rules do not allow for that," or "that is an optional rule and I'm choosing not to use it," and especially if you quote Rule 0 to them. I completely understand if this attitude drives people away from 5e, I don't like interacting with those people either. That's why I always vet my players, make use of Session 0, and don't continue running or playing games with players who act that way.
Jumped off this moving train and hitched a ride with BRP (call of cthulhu, rune quest, 7th sea...etc..etc), also looking at Mythras... so far looks worthy,
Very nice discussion! ❤
Love the MCDM humor. I know Matt would get a kick out of it too.
Reason 1 why I left. They got rid of employees due to their political beliefs. Reason 2 .It got woke. Reason 3. I found a better replacement. BASIC FANTASY.
This was a long time coming. I left a long time ago but I understand why people put up with the company because getting into a new system that everyone is on board with was the real issue.
I never jumped on the 5E wagon. My group and I got the original 3E books when they were released, and for a number of reasons were dissapointed. We went back to AD&D 2E, which is what we always played, and have stuck to it since. Tried 5E with some family and their friends that had the books, but the same dissapointment was there. My 3E books just sit on the shelf now. Btw, like the new ‘&’ logo on your channel 😉
I started with AD&D 2E back in 99 and when 3E came out our DM moved the game into 3E. Don't get me wrong I liked 3E enough to keep playing and running it until about 2016 but found that the game never quite had the same vibe as AD&D 2E did. I decided to try 5E with their society play because I didn't have anyone to game with at the time. I found the game even less engaging than 3E and just way too overpowered that I just felt like why am I playing this game? Make no never mind that 5E players really tend to be the bottom of the barrel when it comes to players at least from the experience of open society play. I decided to quit and in mid 2017 started gathering AD&D 2E books again to the point that I have a very respectable collection as well as added the Rules Cyclopedia and a few 1E books. I never intend to drop AD&D or BECMI and will keep adding to the book shelves.
Back in the mid90s several of my group members had classified jobs in the Air Force. They couldn’t even tell me what branch they were in that’s all classified. Got bored one day and decided to do a bunch of math and came up with all the things that they would later add into 2E modified, and third edition. Things like mana system the way we set up Nana I mean who wants to play a wizard you get one shot ya, forehead points at most, which is like a five-year-old child as a 22 year old male character. And you do one to four points of damage with your most powerful spell magic missile. Also, they figure it out the impact energy of various arrows fired from standard 45, 65, 75 pound draw weight bows, and found out most arrows impact with the force of a 38 special fired from the 6 inch barrel. We also created a system for crits, critical fumbles and spellcasting. Now you don’t want your magic user who isn’t too bright to be casting a spell anywhere near the group after all a dragon might appear. If you’re interested, I can try and put it together and put it on something like OneDrive or Google Drive and you can download it see if you’ll like it or not. After all it does add a lot of flavor for both scenarios and spells. I use the example of grog the warrior with 102 hp walks into a bar to start a fight. Guard walks in with a club 1D4+1 for strength and a small hand crossbow 1D4 damage. Tells grog all right, you’re coming with me punk! Grog No ! Guard (BOINK) Shoots grog for four hit points of damage. Grog pulls out the bolt looks at it and tells the guard I’ve hurt my self worse shaving. We came up with a system that Borrowed mechanics from other system. Then, modify them for second edition. The system will work with basic edition, first edition, second edition, And with some minor adjustments, third edition and 3.5 Edition. Now the guard fires Rosa crit could end up with something like punctured long bleeds out in three turns unless a high heal or high healing potion is used. Let me know if you’re interested I’ll get to work on it
I still play a hybrid 1st and 2nd ed myself.
I looked back at an old 5E character trapped in 4th level D&D Beyond purgatory who I barely even remembered playing and he had over 1000 GP… most of his gear was still from creation and it’s not like I really had a chance to spend it on anything cause each session bled directly into the next with little or no down time for shopping or role play.
It was a pre-made campaign (Theros I wanna say) with homebrew elements, but of all the games I’ve played that’s the one I felt most on the rails for.
The best part of 5e is the first 5 lvls, after that--it becomes stale and broken the more lvl's PC advance. It was fun to run AD&D 1 (for the first time, and learning all the mechanics), it too can become broken if you had out too much loot and not read what the loot does lol. I am about done setting up The Keep on the Borderlands on roll20, and getting excited to run a Basic D&D game. It was my introduction to D&D, the red box back in 84, and loved it...
AD&D definitely has the _potential_ for characters to be just as broken, but WotC D&D bakes that into the character itself, whereas TSR D&D - be it OD&D, B/X /BECMI/Holmes, or AD&D(prior to MASSIVE bloat in the latter portion of 2e) - it's more or less reliant on the DM giving the players way too much loot and magic items. A 7th-level fighter with just a stick in 3.x/5e will sneeze on a pack of orcs and kill them, while the same pack could still be mortal peril for a 7th level AD&D fighter with non-magical armor and weapons, and will be reliant on that gear to even _touch_ stronger foes even without immunities, while the WotC fighter will wreck house once an immunity is overcome.
a) it's a power fantasy.
b) monsters/enemies have been emasculated to allow a)
c) it's art and conception it's full of identity politics.
1. PCs are superheroes. Because the skills were simplified to so few someone in the party is bound to be proficient in a skill, and at lower levels the +2 bonus for proficiency isn't all that much different. Also almost all of the 5e Modules seem to treat the party at the only answer which every NPC bows down to and helps. Out of the Abyss, Storm King's Thunder, and Horde of the Dragon Queen simply presents a Campaign full of 1 type of monster and hopes the party will enjoy killing them and learning about their motive. That's it.
2. The rules which PCs and Monsters use do not work together. For example, when the DM makes a large-sized Orc with a large-sized sword the Orc attacks with +1 damage dice, just like it was in 3rd edition. The Orc's HP, STR, and DEX are also expected scale to match (but they don't tell you why and by how much). Instead, when a PC increases in Size their weapon does +1d4 damage and they get Advantage on STR checks. All in all, they do not explicitly show you well how to create good homebrew content, and so DMs and players tend not to respect the system.
3. Tasha's Guide to All Things Magical. WotC's design started to change with this book. It betrays what Core 5e tells the players, that all new content is subject to DM approval. Instead the book tells the players that they are responsible for choosing to include the variant rules for THEIR character or not, as if the DM should never restrict your Character idea. Unearthed Arcana since Tasha's has followed the same tone.
I never got into 5e. Some of my players prefer it and I've played a little with them, but at this point I've sort of settled into either 3.5 or BECMI, depending on what I'm running. Some talk in my group lately of trying AD&D and some of those classic modules from the 70s and early 80s. I'm slowly accepting that maybe modules should be run in the system they were designed for, rather than trying to convert them.
I started playing D&D in the early 1980's and then became really immersed with AD&D. D&D 5e only bares a superficial resemblance to the older hard core version of D&D. At first they don't really look that different but deeper down the differences are more apparent, more felt. The old Table Top Wargame feel of AD&D is still present with each character class having a specific role in the party. A party that wasn't well rounded had no chance of success. The group was the vehicle for success. D&D 5e promotes individuals. This is easily seen with the emphasis on back stories. It wasn't until D&D 5e that I saw Rogues who won't scout and search for traps, Fighters who won't Tank, Clerics who won't heal too much (for fear they won't have enough for themselves), a Ranger in the forest saying to the party "why should I always go first?". I never before saw adult players get so upset when their characters die and the rules of the game to go to such lengths to prevent character death. In AD&D character death was assumed, it was only a matter of time, No one ever got to level 20.
I'm not saying earlier versions of D&D are better then 5e, I think that's a personal choice but I haven't played 5e for years already. I have chosen another game that I enjoy more that reminds me of the old hard core days.
I think its the amount of time invested in a character, there's much more time invested in makeing them with choices of stats, gear, skills and there detailed backstory.
A OSR character? role 4d6 an pick a weapon an armour then give me a name, good now avenge that last character.
What you say seems more like an erosion of player risk taking and risk management. But a lot of players these days started FRPG with computer/console games. A lot of those build up the solo player hero before he/she gets a proper party and enters the truly dangerous areas. Which aren't dangerous with regular level grinding and item acquisition. OSR gaming doesn't have firmly drawn boundaries and has adventure sites where solo play at level is suicide. It's meant to be a team sport, and the adventuring team where everyone plays their part and cooperates will get to Name Level faster than you might expect. It's not 5E's fault for individualism uber alles, it's more of a reflection of contemporary ethos where group interaction is downplayed. But that's the DM/GM's role anyways, to encourage group play by making examples out of the ones who fail to do so.
@@SuperFunkmachine I've played an OSR character for over 3 years and only reached level 9. I don't agree that a 5e character has more invested.
@@observationsfromthebunker9639 I see your point and I agree for the most part. However I absolutely do believe that 5e was developed to be a softer game with individualism as a major trait. I could give details but there is limited room in a text.
@@liamcage7208 i'm arguing that a 5e character has more work and time invested then a 1st ed or basic character.
Its roll an play stats vs choose,
Fighter vs a dozen sub classes.
Every step is more work an makes the character less replaceable, the real time penalty is longer an longer.
Yes an OSR character is equal but that after there first dungeon, there's a filter that 5e lacks.
Every 5e character is the hero from the first dice roll vs the dungeon exit.
I never played 5e, because when I had a chance at reading it's rules, it looked a poorly conceived system to me. The three reasons you pointed out are only consequences of that system I could foresee by just reading it. But more can be said about them.
Gold and wealth have become trivial with 3rd edition. The developers of 3e had the insane idea to give a monetary value to magic, be it spells or magic items. And that led them to the concept of "average wealth per level", as characters were expected to have a certain level of possessions at some point in their career to be able to confront adequate challenges.
This should include everything they possess, including strongholds and domains, but for players it soon became just "carried equipment to fight with". A significative distortion, which brought us to the even more strictly enforced wealth systems of 4e and 5e.
Also, gold became incredibly cheap, since magic items market circulates metric tons of that metal in every single city of every single setting, unlike what happened in older editions. To be realistic, one gold coin should be enough to let a commoner family of 8 to 10 people to cover basic expenses for at least a month. Having each adventurer being able to pile up thousands of those with ease is simply unbelievable.
Too fast leveling up has always been a problem. Even in BECMI, if you found out a consistent treasure during an adventure, you could easily level up instantly. AD&D 2nd Edition even added individual class awards for class-specific achievements to be given on the spot, on top of treasure and defeating foes.
Third edition removed experience from treasure, but it also tied the level progression to the number of foes of a certain challenge rating defeated, around 13, which meant a level up every three or four adventuring days, if the number of encounters was roughly around the expectations. That was incredibly fast, like twenty levels in five weeks or so of game world time.
Pathfinder 1e brought that up to 20-25 such foes, but still it was fast as hell.
And adventure paths are not even the problem here. They have existed since BECMI, with B1-9, and were everywhere in 2nd edition, especially in settings such as Planescape, DarkSun or Al Qadìm, whose expansions often came with thematic campaigns to be played in the new section of the setting as part of the dedicated boxed set.
The real problem is that level had to keep up with wealth, which you kept gaining at an astonishing pace, since that was actually built directly in the character progression math. Fast enrichment requires fast leveling for the game to not implode.
The superhero syndrome has unfortunately started with 4e, because of a sick tendency of 3.5 players: starting playing as third level characters.
Many lame players were lamenting the high mortality rate and lack of power of starting 1st level characters, especially if they rolled poorly for ability scores. Instead of playing like that, they started going around the problem with max point buy, three levels, and the corresponding 3rd level average wealth for equipment, obviously all thrown into weapons and gear, leaving nothing for amenities such a horse, a place to live in or living expenses.
That's why 4e characters started out as already well known heroes, roughly equivalent in power as a 3.5 3rd level character and with a background career on top of that. All concepts 5e directly inherited.
By the way, this has also led straight to dying becoming almost impossible in 5e (and Pathfinder 2e, which is largely based upon basic 5e concepts).
I'd actually argue that the transition point was 4e, not 3e. In 3e, wealth is _critical,_ as the power scaling of monsters and NPCs is based around an acquisition of a certain measure of wealth. Put another way, an increasingly significant portion of your PC's efficacy is based on gear. Your character's party comes as much from gear as from level. Crucially, all this gear (except artifacts) has a GP value and can be purchased or crafted. There's always an incentive to acquire more gold, because gold straight up equals power in much the same way as it did in earlier editions.
While gear is important in 4e, the magic item economy was scrapped in favor of "parcels" that you're DM was expected to provide you on schedule. There was no reason to seek out wealth, because it was just going to be provided.
5e takes the next logical step by assuming _no_ magical gear, at least nominally. Combining this assumption with the expectation that death will be rare means that there's no incentive to seek out wealth. Good can't be converted to gear, and gear isn't needed to progress the preplanned campaign arc. So why bother taking an active role in deciding which adventures to go on or locations to explore?
Gold: Can't be roleplayed.
Settlement: Isn't an adventure to be roleplayed.
Max Level: End of game? Can't be roleplayed.
Super-heroes: Is a party of 5 not a party? Seems more like 5 single-players, that can survive anything. Do they even need a DM? Luckily, I haven't reached these problems. My D&D group split up and went all over the (real) world. All I'm left with is..... solo-playing BECMI. 🙂
I feel like you've nailed the issue with 5e DnD, and the super hero feel. But I think 5e is not the problem, but rather a symptom. I feel like modern visual media (movies, TV, and video games) influence gamers very heavily.The lack of consequences, the over the top action, and easy resolution are all something kids are exposed to from a young age. Years before they pick up dice most people's expectations have been trained along these channels. 5e is really just giving them what they want. I'm not saying this is a bad thing per se. I'm happy to see the hobby grow and flourish, and if the people involved are enjoying themselves, then carry on. But I do feel like everything in 5e is just a little more small minded. IDK, maybe I'm just an old man shaking his fist at clouds.
I hear you! You might also like my old man’s shouts at clouds video. 🙂
1 & 2. Pacing and purpose of gold.
Strongholds and Followers: It was a take on the subjects involved, just not what I was looking for personally.
For a while I ported some 3e stuff to use instead; These days I'm now back to looking at houseruled 3e mechanics + point-buy classless 3e (Eclipse) (Haven't settled on a set of domain play rules I prefer yet, there are several competing options), as well as games with a bit more depth like The Dark Eye and GURPS Dungeon Fantasy + Fantasy + Low-Tech + Boardroom & Curia. I like the domain play and base building stuff. I watch your channel to hear an OSR perspective, and find it interesting, even if I lean more towards crunchier games.
I agree that levelling in 3e-5e is pretty quick. And that the feat trees made things very centered on "I want to level up to get to the point where I can actually play the character I want to play".
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3. Characters feel superhuman
They do, I'm personally fine with that one, but if that's not what you're looking for 3e and 5e will not deliver what you want unless you stick to really low level play.
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It's good that there are a variety of options available, and that we're not all shackled to whatever Hasbro wants people to play.
We still use the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons DMG for so many things. Not sure that 5th edition books will retain the same value.
I'll be odd man out, one of my biggest reasons for disliking 5e is the Realms. I was never a fan even though I started play in the early 90's when the Forgotten Realms were already king. I much better enjoyed settings like Dark Sun, Planescape, and Mystara. Different settings for different styles of play. The Forgotten Realms tried to be every setting and its high magic approach where almost everybody has magic just never worked for me. I liked magic to be rare, powerful, dangerous. If I wanted medieval play, then I'd go with Mystara. If I wanted post-apocalyptic, then I'd go with Dark Sun. If I wanted a philosophical game, then I'd go with Planescape. Later on I really enjoyed Eberron where magic was both mundane and abundant but still rare, powerful, and dangerous, as much as it can be in 3e. I know WotC has attempted to bring back some older settings but it always felt more like they were placing them in the Realms because everything is in the Realms. What makes your setting unique? Nothing. It has everything, as long as it is politically correct.
You’re not the odd man out. Something about the Realms has never sat right with me. It’s either too high magic or there’s just too much stuff interwoven that you feel like you need to know all of it. Give me Dark Sun or Planescape over that any day. Or of course, the Known World. 🙂
@@becmiberserker The Realms, where a 20th level spellcaster is camping out in every hamlet....
Took on a couple 5e players in our 2nd ed game
You're very quickly becoming one of my favourite D&D YT video commentators. Honestly, I could listen to you discuss and talk about any random ol' topic. Do Encounter Focused Design vs Lair Focused Design next! You know, in my head that was typed to the Bart Simpson 'Say the line!' meme, but yeah, might have been lost.
Anyway, stay cool and keep rolling.
Thanks for the coffee and bagel!
I feel all the points, but the third one especially. My players are at a point where they all (even the fighter) can use misty step or some other kind of teleportation. seemed quite ridicolous when everyone used it in a fight.
5E is superhero fantasy.
Once you look at it like that, everything else falls into place.
Just put your Paladin in Spandex put a "P" his chest. You're good to go.
I'll give you my three reasons for leaving 5e:
1.) 5e has ZERO flavor or creativity and HORRENDOUS writing and artwork. It is a soulless corporate product designed by people who don't give a shit about the quality of their work.
2.) If 5e casters are optimized, they are much tankier than martials. This is exactly the opposite of what should be the case.
3.) 5e has very little original content. It's mostly lazily rehashed material from previous editions.
I agree with you BB, from 3E on D&D became a card game where "System Mastery" became a thing. In short TRUE D&D as I call it emulates LITERARY Myth/Classic Fantasy/Sword&Sorcery. WotC D&D emulates Video Games/Deck Building Card Games and is D&D in name only which simply isn't my thing.
It is very annoying that WotC just slaps the D&D name on games that aren't D&D. They own the trademark so that's that. 😒
Wow, I didn't know how the adventure path method started. I never think of myself as old, I just think of me as me, but I'm old as shit I guess and I have never played 5e. I'm familiar enough with 3rd edition (3.5) which isn't my bag, but I generally ran through down time at the beginning of every session and would string no more than 2-3 levels worth of hooks, developments and related action into any given location or related adventures.
Interesting stuff, thanks for the video my man!
You’re more than welcome.
Big one I found is the drop of quality. Look at Ghosts of Saltmarsh. There is a great bit at the back on how to build a ship, what its goals are, what its carrying. Its pretty good. I look at the spelljammer book and its just so bad in comparison.
I don't think there is a problem with high power, its the fact you start strong and get stronger. There is very little to do as you starting point. If you want to do high power and not bother with low power the answer should be start at 10th level.
I agree with the reasons goven in the video, but I left for 3 different reasons:
1. Hasbro has made it clear they don't want me as their customer. I'm a straight, white, 42 year old male that's been playing D&D since I was 8. They go to great pains to make sure I know they don't make their game for me.
2. They called all the writers who came before them sexist, bigot, phobe, etc with zero justification. They don't respect the people who got them there in the least, probably necause they were mostly white people.
3. Their writing and design skills are trash and they are only getting worse. Seriously, it was after I spent so much time fixing the things they wrote to where it wasn't completely awful that I remembered that there were already games out there I actually liked. So I went back to 2e, would totally go back to Basic, because both were good games.
I've got a bunch of 5e players to play 3rd and none of them have gone back, I recommend people that enjoy 5e for what it is; but also want to play something better to jump into. It's pretty much just the superior version of it, everything 5e succeeds at; it succeeds five times over, everything it fails at; it probably succeeds at. It has companion rules, epic rules, actual use for your money, your characters are FAR more than just their race and class, it doesn't hard punish you for wanting to multiclass or picking a suboptimal feat. While your characters can be very powerful, they aren't as invincible as 5e characters because of how rests work, and the lack of death saving throws making you die if you take 10 more damage over your maximum. The idea that its a 'powergamers game' comes from players coming from computer games and not understanding the incredible nuance in character building the system has, if you have a concept you can play it.
Its also very adaptable to the place and type of game you want. Want a game about resource management and floor by floor delving? Have players be classic dnd classes. Want a breakneck game with a lot of action setpieces? Have your party play with Book of Nine Swords. Want an evil game with minions and army building? There's Book of Vile Darkness (the actual book, not the item), Arms and Equipment Guide, and the Leadership feat to cover that. Maybe a game about peaceful and pious approaches to your issues? Book of Exalted Deeds (the actual book, not the item) covers that too.
It's also incredibally grounded, while a lot of 5e's conditions and generic options are video gamey, grappling, tripping, being entangled, etc, all have very tangible effects. You can't just be knocked over and shimmy away safely only to stand up and fight like it never happened, you can't casually wield an oversized halberd while something is grappling with you, and you can't cast spells while an angry barbarian is trying to take you to the floor because your hands are occupied with trying to stop him.
If you just want just a taste of the old school games, while keeping the more modern paradigm to your characters and gameplay, you should give it a try.
5e is more of a power gamers game imo. 3e just has enough variety where you could break something if you tried, 5e expects you to minmax and balences everything around that
Another great video. Power creep is my #1 reason for quitting 5E. As a DM, it gets ridiculous coming up with adventures every session that include dragons, beholders, titans, etc that are powerful enough to be a "threat" to the higher level players...especially when a lowly free to cast cantrip like Spare the Dying means there is almost 0 chance of them dying. How do you make any of it feel serious? I looked at B/X (what I grew up on), Old School Essentials, BECMI, Labyrinth Lords, Basic Fantasy, etc but nothing quite did it for me until I found the Shadowdark system which, while using many modern mechanics, strips back the game and characters themselves to something much closer to B/X or BECMI in terms of power. I only ran a single one-shot adventure with it and my 3 year campaign of 5E players voted unanimously to switch to the Shadowdark system. But while I won't be using BECMI, I already bought a whole bunch of old Gazateer adventure modules along with B1-B4 adventures to use for inspiration on how to design adventures for this style of game play. Both I an my group are looking forward to it. Keep up the great videos, please as I get a lot of inspiration from your work as well. Thank you.
5e is a vestige of D&D where everyone has to pretend like there are real stakes. It's kind of fun to play when everyone keeps up the show, but very frustrating and boring to DM where you can see behind the curtain the whole time at how ridiculous it is.
There are never any real stakes. The dm could always snap his fingers and do anything
As a DM, I never awarded xp for gold, not even back in the days of 2e in the 1990s. I fully agree that 5e is overpowered, though, which is one of the main reasons I now refuse to play the game. Unlimited cantrips wouldn't be such a big problem if cantrips were still as extremely weak as they were when they were first introduced in 1982. Now, however, some cantrips are more powerful than first level spells used to be.
I don't think it's overpowered - but it is bland as hell. After playing it for 3 or 4 years, I see now how lacking it is in diversity of character options and styles.
True - the same was true for old school gaming AD&D - BUT as this video points out (which I agree with) the leveling system is far quicker - so the breakneck speed to advance a campaign and levels means you're starting over more and more rapidly - where as when I was in highschool (in the 80s) we played the same character for years - much as it displayed in Stranger Things.
I never played the old systems. But from what i hear i've come to the conclusion that the problem is not that cantrips are unlimited. Since they basically allow for things that combat wise are already easily done without magic at all. But that in general the numbers have gone up too much as powercreep has infected the game.
Well you definitely played it like most people did back in the day.
Ignoring everything they don't like and making it up on the spot 🤣
Great video. Thank you.
The superhero PCs is my largest complaint about the current DnD. I will play a superhero TTRPG if I want to play a superhero. It's gotten stupid and as the DM you have to put more and more work into the game to properly challenge the PCs. Yet, in my experience, when you finally give the PCs a real challenge they get made at you. Like, "how dare you actually threaten me here!" It gets old quick and to offset the overpowered PCs they have to create overpowered creatures. Creating massively long slog combats as two overpowered sides beat at each other with their overpowered abilities. This is why my groups are moving to C&C. I find that it's a good compromise between new mechanics and ideas with an older mindset. The PCs are slightly more powerful than older AD&D but much weaker than 5e or Pathfinder PCs. It's what I felt that DnD should have been and apparently so did Gary. I was disappointed from the start with 5e because it felt more like a story game with almost zero risk. You can adjust things but you can only mess with the game so much until you might as well just go to another game or you're going to break it entirely.
My problem with gold is how much you are supposed to get and what that means in world, it ties into the op part where you are richer than 90% of people in 2 ingame weeks
You can switch to a silver based XP system to fix economics issues.
Bud...you're richer than 90% of the pop in CHARACTER CREATION.
I hate that everyone has their full movement, action, bonus action, and if applicable, reaction, and that action could be attack, which could be up to 4 swings… All over a span of 10 seconds.. and you get multiple saves as required, which could be dodging out of said fireball blast x 2..
as a monk/fighter.. I lose verisimilitude every time combat arises.. which is really sad as someone who found D&D through AD&D around 11 years old.
Then there’s the issue of that one round taking upwards of 45 minutes to complete at times…
I forgot to add add:
Thank you BECMI for putting to words multiple things I’ve been having issues with explaining to my party. 🎉❤
I wish you the best, and hope you continue to grow.
Good video sir, as I said to my friends, there exists somewhere a D&D experience that is somewhere between the MCU style 5e and the Full Metal Jacket style of OSR 😉 I haven't found it yet, and no it's not 3e, but yeah... thanks for the video. Love you channel.
Thank you!
Everlore, Into the Unknown, Dungeonesque.
They are all smaller third party releases but each of them is a take on 5E combined with OSR.
Maybe you'll find what your looking for.
Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea 3e gave me everything I could ever want, but is certainly not for everyone.
@@iantaran2843 I am leaning at FantasyAGE by Green Ronin right now, or Castles & Crusades by Troll Lord Games. Also BareBones Fantasy by DWD Studios is a LOT of fun too.
@@bearthegenxgm Hey whatever ends up filling the hole at the table 🤘
Castles and crusades is the system I'm slowly dragging my bro into 🤣
Those three are just systems I ran across trying to find something similar enough to 5E that bro didn't have to learn or change to much.
Whatever it is, may your games kick ass 🤘
@@bearthegenxgm I have had F-AGE for a while now and it's a basic good system. But house rules are needed (health bloat mainly) to make combat's less of a slog. I am interested in what they will do in the revised core book, if it ever comes out.
Great video! Yes, 5e has many similarities with card games, and perhaps Magic the Gathering as well. DM'ing for a group with a mix of experienced and inexperienced players it struck me that the experienced players who knew the rules, had an overview of the spells and had knowledge of feats, classes and races, were able to combo and find synergies within the system that the inexperienced players could only happen upon by chance or by support from the experienced players. This feature is non-existant in BECMI or B/X as far as I'm concerned.
Also, as a DM, if you don't have this knowledge as well the players will plough through your encounters like butter. It becomes, as you stated, a sort of attack/counterattack, cat and mouse sort of mini game within the game, which I did not appreciate. If WOTC introduces loot-boxes and unique feats unlocked by money the circle will be complete.
i always referred to this as the "arms race". It started in 3rd edition. It sounded something like this!
Player: "ah cool, i just leveled, I added feat XYZ, class feature ABC, and upgraded my magic equipment - so now my attack bonus went up by +4 - that should sway the pendulum in our favor!"
DM: next adventure all AC is 4 higher.
Player: I just leveled up - I made sure to increase my AC, my magic gear is now one plus higher, and I took Feat ABC. So now those creatures need a much higher roll to hit me
DM: next adventure all creatures now have +3 more to attack rolls.
Why do I still need a 14 to hit everything? Why am I still being hit every combat? I guess I need to increase these at next level again.....
Rinse - repeat.
Meanwhile the less knowledgeable players who are not as adept at finding mechanic min/maxing opportunities are getting creamed and can't hit shit, getting overwhelmed, and frustrated - and lose interest
4th Edition made a good attempt at making all the characters level and balance - but at the cost of being mundane and boring as hell.
To be completely honest, in BECMI the spells you get as a MU and the weapons you specialize into if you use Weapon Mastery can make a huge difference.
@@Kaiyanwang82 Yes, they can make a huge difference, but there are so few of them. In BECMI the DM and players very quickly learn all the spells, I means there are only 12 magic-user spells each level and most likely a wizard won't get to level 2 spells before weeks or monthds of play and even then there is only 12 more spells introduced into the mix.
In 5e there are hundreds of spells and each class can tap into different spell lists in different ways making the combinations almost endless. It's a huge difference!
I still have my copy of the collected modules of Shackled City. I love running that campaign, flaws and all.
I used to have the Shackled City hardcover, but gave it away with all my 3e stuff in a fit of pique! It’s one of the few books I regret getting rid of.
@@becmiberserker I might have the pdf of it somewhere on my computer, if you'd like me to send it your way.
I ran that campaign with 3.5 rules, and then Age of Worms with Pathfinder rules. I was exhausted as a DM once i was done with these.
Then as a player I went through entire Rise of Runelords, and then entire Wrath of the Righteous. After those 4 back back epic 1 to 20 campaigns, I realized I didn't really enjoy RPGing this way. It was not the same fun and love I once had in AD&D 2nd etc.
I decided to branch out and try other game systems and found a love for non D&D (not PF) games much more.
Now The One Ring and Blades in the Dark are my two favorite game systems.
Followed by Smallville RPG and What's Old Is New.
I do play 5e now - but only cuz it's popular here - not at all something I overtly love.
@@DarkKnightCuron I have the PDF already, but thank you for the offer.
TPK in the first Shackled City module soured the group on it which was a shame. It was difficult though.
Reasons I left 5e:
1) 5e Dungeonmastering sucked. Too much prep for too little payoff, poorly designed rules for play past levels 9-14, and I HATED the way that WotC wrote their modules. Curse of Strahd, one of their "best" modules for 5e has multiple characters introduced in "Chapter 1" or 2 who are supposed to tell the party critical information...which the book doesn't mention until Chapter 4 or 5. The simplicity of OSR design, mixed with the ability to run most modules out of the box blind and still have a blast absolutely won me over.
2) Magic that isn't magic. A fire spell that can't start fires, an ice spell that can't freeze, etc. The desire to balance "martial" classes by basically giving them magic, giving magic users infinite 0th level spells so they "never become irrelevant at low levels", having magic classes able to use whatever spells they've "prepared" in any slots without having to think about it. For me, magic is best when it's a toolkit used to solve problems. If I build an ice mage and you start sinking our ship a few yards off the coast, I'm going to want to try to build an ice bridge. The fact that magic is so much of a commodity that "fighters" can heal themselves and I can infinitely blast people with raw magical energy but I can't make an ice bridge or set a building on fire unless the spell SPECIFIES it can do so is such B.S. I know that people think this is dumb because i've never met a 5e DM that wouldn't ignore the RAW, but it's a problem the RAW are like this. And an issue I have with not just 5e -- quadratic magic user / linear fighter is a feature, not a flaw.
3) The commodification of one of my passions for the mass consumer who has no understanding or love for my hobby. 5e players almost exclusively come over because of Game of Thrones, the Witcher, Critical Role or Stranger Things. Most of them haven't seen LotR, let alone read the LotR, none have read Elric (of which Geralt is a complete ripoff), none of them spent years reading other people's game write ups and most of them would have (and probably still do) think that the nerds like the kids from Stranger Things are "weirdos". It's just annoying to see people vapidly consume your hobby and then a massive company like Hasbro sells out to them. Yeah, I get it, they're going to make money, and something like the MCU and the nu-Trilogy have proven that even shameless hacks with zero respect for "muh source material" can make millions and millions of dollars, but it's just exhausting to care about something that nobody else does.
THANKFULLY, though, I have BECMI, Mystara, Dark Sun, Spelljammer and the OSR style games and settings like Lamentaitons, Cha'alt, etc -- and no one can take that away!
Love the vids, by the way. Keep it up.
I started in 2e. I do think that leveling was too slow and many mages would multiclass in rogue just because they leveled more quickly. Instead I think the issue is often that we get to level 20 and stop playing. Play doesn’t have to stop there at all. :)
Indeed! Look out for my next BECMI video on the Master Rules, where players may take the path to immortality…
In my experience, most play stopped around level 9-11, because the DM could no longer enjoy challenging the min/max weenie players. I remember running Shackled City and Age of Worms to completion. The amount of prep in 3rd and later PF rules to create a big encounter for double-digit level characters was like preparing to test for the bar exam.
@@Frostrazor This is so true!
What I love the most about treasure gained giving you experience is smart players will start looking for loot that isn't gold. They start looking at trade goods and other equally worthwhile items like art pieces and such. There is a big reason why in older editions especially Advanced Dungeons and Dragons that certain classes had stat restrictions to even become a member of that class. Rangers and Paladins are really strong but they also require really high stats to play so it balances out. wotc dungeons and superheroes is pretty much just an mmo with dice and miniatures. If I want to play an mmo I will just get one but as I really don't like mmo's guess what I won't be doing? I had made the decision to stop playing any wotc games after trying 5E society play or whatever it is called and found the game not to be what I want in a game and the player base it attracts just not who I want to game with. If I never get to play again I think I will be happy just sitting down and creating things.
Thank you for sharing the feedback. I've come to the realization that 3e and it's progeny are not an evolution of old D&D but a new creation that makes a D&D themed action movie. Characters are precious - I don't mean this in a pejorative, snowflaky kind of way but players make a big investment in building a custom tuned avatar for the game.
When I was younger I had similar attachment to characters in 1st ed AD&D but the rules were unsympathetic. Your characters died in unheroic ways. They wind up the climactic attack on the big bad and whoosh - the dice say nope and it's a big miss and the character looks dumb and the thief steals your thunder with a cheeky backstab.
The way I see it BECMI still had not relinquished it's Chainmail roots by making the characters a separate entity the player controls while it's become a lens through which the player experiences the world with more recent editions. Not to say this is bad but I think this explains why the rules are incorporating hedges against chance rolls.
5e DMG talks about random encounters using tables but basically says figure it out yourself. Add lack of clarity on using CR for more than simple cases and that is a big miss on something every DM has to handle.
I'm playing two campains and never had problem with too much of gold. Most of time I don't have enought gold to even buy potions.
I also have players that constantly want level ups, but i then asked the question
"What are the level ups for, if you don't even get to stay on the level and actually get to use everything you got?"
We play Pathfinder 2nd Edition and my big grudge with the game is that there are so many rules that even tho we play since a year we still find new rules on a session to session basis, like "What's the difference between evil and negative damage?" or "How do you get out of being grappled?".
It's not that the rules are too difficult, it's just that we always find new things and they are another drop of water into the barrel of rules we would have to keep an eye on.
Okay, you're not completely off your rocks here. But, after watching a few of your videos, I cannot help but wonder if one of the reasons why 5E managed to get people into the game was some strange sweet spot in gameplay.
For instance, whenever I hear about OSR style gaming, unless we talk about Crawford style games, my mind goes blank, and with the dungeoncrawling, hexcrawling and everlooming threat of death, I can kinda sense that it is not a type of D&D that I have ever sought to emulate in my games.
Neither is the superheroic power-build fantasy that PF2 emulates.
My sort of game is more of a character-driven, storyfocused fantasy with a bit more focus on the lower-levels, emulation of the surrounding world and epic journies and quests.
If they run into a dungeon, it's probably more like the Mines of Moria than treasure hunting, and more often only once in the entire campaign. Often, I don't have character death as an option, but deals in consequences for lose and setbacks in the story itself.
(And I usually run back to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st Edition if I want to see a high turnover in PC's)
I wonder if the difference between these facets are not more like the relation between wargames, dioramabuilders and model trainenthusiasts.
We all build and paint little stuff.... but for very difference reasons. Same medium, very different hobby.
What 5E somehow (after droves of marketing research and experiemental game design) presented was some sort of golden spot between a lot of different playstyles... but never really doing a single thing well. More like, it did things okay'ish.
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But. I love the analysis you bring to the table. As a game, D&D5E has some serious problems, and I cannot wait for more folks to discover other games out there.
If you want a fantasy game that is not feeling like a pokemon card game full of superpowered heroes - try The One Ring. These are extraordinary heroes - but like in LotR, they are still reminded of their mortality and importance is choosing to act wisely. The rule-system is easy to learn, with fast paced simple to resolve combat mechanics, and a lot of emphasis on story-based character development - not just mechanics of levelling up.
That's an option at Free RPG day this weekend at my LGS. I'm going to try it out.
The books are made cheaply and their content isn't that good
That and don't forget your overcharged on a digital and/or virtual tabletop version potentially. Not everyone likes lugging all those books or would prefer to not risk damaging/loosing them.
Good is always relative... and relative to Kobold Press and Paizo the WotC books are BAD!
Interesting video. I'm a 3.5 man myself, and I think it's half way between the old school and new school styles. Yes, you're ubber powerful, but the baddie still can wreak you. There are lots of fun downtime activities that help you as character. I had never thought of how 3.5 incentivises you to level up. In hind sight it is obvious though as I consider character design a major aspect of the game. One I really enjoy helping my players with or seeing what they come up with. I'm level 4 in my first 5e game and leveling up in that is frankly boring. You start out with all these crazy abilities, and then just kinda get little add ons, or cards as tou will. At least I felt like my 3.5 character was growing and learning. I've only ever played older dnd sytems in the Baldur's Gate games, but leveling up in 5e feels a lot more like that.
I would honestly like to know what your thoughts on something like Pathfinder 2e are. I genuinely think it's a really nice middle ground between the modern "superhero" TTRPG and more old-school, crunchier stuff.
That D&D is basically a high fantasy superhero game was always my point, why I didn't like it for my games. The ruleset can do this one thing very well, and is, in my opinion, unfit for anything else. I am still baffled how games like The One Ring or Symbaroum have been adapted to 5E... It makes so little sense to me, I'm almost upset.
Point 3: overpowered and Pokemon. That killed 5e for me in a month after I came back from a thirty year break. The solution to 5e issues was OSE Advanced.
The good thing about TTrpgs, DND in particular, is how easy it is to adjust as necessary to what the DM and group are trying to play whether its hardcore, superhero, horror, etc. IMHO despite what old schoolers say, you can adapt any rule from the BRB to DND 5e and everything in between . Every edition has its good points and bad, as to which is which is a matter of opinion. Every one of the problems presented in the vid can be fixed by the DM, the same for any bad thing in the previous editions, thats the whole point on having a DM.
Then again, if the complaint is that 5e relies too much on the DM to fix things, thats true for ALL game systems. If a game system is too simple, the GM/DM has to resolve things not specified in the rules, if the game is too rigid(rules for everything) the DM still has to adjudicate when circumstances dont make sense. In that sense all the complaints about any game system is moot.
Playing any ttrpg that has quantified and specified what abilities and actions will always feel like some soft of video game, its inherent to the situation. But a lot of players prefer to know what they can or cant do at least early in a game system. If the TTrpg is very loosely ruled, it falls on to the GM/DM to describe what happens, which a lot of older players prefer but can put too much of a burden on the GM/DM. The best game systems imho have a very healthy mix of the 2 styles, just enough rules to feel the crunchiness but not so much to limit what the players/DMs can do. 5e, despite its flaws, has been one of the best that mixed both styles. Easy enough to use, but flashy enough to give a wow factor, otherwise Critical Role wouldnt have converted to it from Pathfinder.
Nice presentation...... you are leaning on an open door with me.
This is the best thing I ever saw.
LOL. So true. D&D has cultural recognition. It's the only reason why so many people still prop it up. It's like people this who will keep going to MD's or 'Siren Coffee' just because it's EVERYWHERE.
I've gotten into PBTA hybrids and it's a blast! I still play OSRs like FTD and DEATHBRINGER but the idea of a sliding success and player facing rolls is just so much fun and opens up a lot of narrative opportunities...and combat doesn't take an hour.
a much lesser reason for why i dislike it compared to others is the imbalance between pure melee classes & magical ones. if 5E wants to have all classes on even ground why does it retain the bias towards magic that only makes sense in oldschool DND?
Imho magic in any game system will always be hard to balance. The fact that is breaks the rules of reality is already a handicap, but then you have to consider other factors in the long run. They would have to give martials reality bending abilities or nerf magic to the point where it has no point. Who would play a mage that cant do damage with spells beyond say 1 or 2 die of damage, or a cleric that cant heal beyond what a martial can do with bandages or rest. Even going halfway from this extreme to the current power levels is such a sour taste for most casters. As an example, some DMs allow magic up to a low level(3rd) usually, but they usually have emptier tables than others. Even if they compensate by giving casters some martial capability, it would be no different than giving a mainstream martial a superfeat.
I think 5e (and Pathfinder 2e) is truly trying hard to keep magic in check compared to 3rd and 4th edition. Having to spend higher level slots for more damage or being limited to 10 rounds or less of duration for some non-damaging spells is a good way to keep magic in check. As a primary caster player myself, i hate that magic has taken a hit since 3rd. I miss having my damage be based on my class level and not having to spend higher level slots or have some spells last 10s of minutes to hours. I hate how abilities that can bypass obstacles were either removed, or nerfed to a point i couldnt use it most of the time like in the old days. But i realize something has to be done becuase martials should have a place in the modern gaming table.
When everyone is special and amazing...no-one is
1. I have been the only DM to succeeding generations of players who are (usually) new to the hobby. Where I am, the game is not popular and other DMs and groups are virtually non existent. Therefore, whenever I do DM a group, my players play what I put in front of them, which is BECMI (since the 80s). I have read every edition since first, including 5e, smiled, put them back on the shelf, and pull out the old Cyclopedia.
2. With BECMI, my players are up and running and embrace the basic rules of the game and surviving their first encounters, and started earning XP in the same amount of time it takes a typical TH-cam 5E group (or should I say acting troupe) to finish introducing their characters after they meet in a tavern and discuss the particular shade of Tabaxi fur they’ve decided on. In BECMI, there is No necessity for faffing about with character backstory, nor are there rules and rolls for every damn thing. We just get on with it, and no, their first introduction to the game will NOT be delivering a shipment of ale to a merchant in another town… I really can’t think of a more boring introduction to an… introductory adventure. I was kindly gifted a “professionally Dungeon Mastered 5 E session” for my birthday once, and by 3 hours, we had a) not finished the fight in the road with the goblins and b) found myself wishing briefly that birthday would be my last.
3. I’ve spent and collected a tonne of BECMI, and 1e material over the years. This material is to hand, not difficult to grasp, and I don’t need any other edition, nor to be told by some TH-camr that the newest OSR/5e/Pathfinder clone with this or that change (“NO to-hit rolls!!) is better. Pish posh! BECMI… just… works.
The reference to Matt Coleville and his 2 products, Strongholds and Followers plus Kingdoms and Warfare, illustrates a failing of 5E. Wizards needed a 3rd party to come up with rules they should have done a long time ago. With 5E, Wizards seems to have taken the worst of Microsoft Vista and XP and combined them into one mess. 5th has echoes of BECMI, where there's nothing really mentioned about what players/characters can look forward to except dungeon crawling (i.e Basic), but they completely drop the ball on making character choices and character paths actually mean something.
It's crazy. I guess BECMI made me expect Mass Combat and Dominion rules as a given for D&D. I've backed ACKs 2 as an "updated" BECMI system and I'm mostly interested in how it treats those systems. But it is wild how they dropped the ball on this. Good on Matt for filling in that gap though I don't see myself playing 5e.
I don't mind 5E for the superhero rules, quite the contrary. It's fun to play a larger-than-life character.
What bothers me, is all the rules. Trying to get complete noobs in TTRPG with 5E is not simple. Furthermore, though I do enjoy a structure to work with, all those rules do not leave much room for the GM to actively play a role, and can bring out the worst in some players that become so hung up on the rules they contest every decision with the aid of the player's manual, draining all fun and spontaneity.
Not even that 5E is that bad, other games are just so interesting and Juicy!
I run Pathfinder 2 for power fantasy, PbtA or FATE for narrative play, and OSE for world driven play. Still want to try some others (Mausritter, Stars Without Number, DCC, and others) but for fantasy, I feel like there’s just better options for fantasy RPG’s than 5e depending on what you want out of it.
I’ll run and play 5e if people really want it, I still enjoy playing RPG’s, but it’s not been my preference for any a year.
See I'm the opposite, I WANT superhuman characters...but the problem is only casters get to be Superhuman with regards game mechanics. It's the 'Dr Strange and Daredevil' problem, Wizards in 5e are Dr Strange at high levels, cast spells which can alter the very fabric of reality...whilst Fighters are all just Daredevil...they're just really good at fighting, sure they're tough but they don't 'do' much. If the Wizards get to be Dr Strange, I want to be the Hulk or Captain Marvel.
In BECMI the Spellcasters at high levels essentially just fucked off to their Wizard tower, whilst the Fighter, Thief, Cleric etc. all operated in the vast 'social' part of the game, they ran spy networks, they organized armies, led kingdoms, meanwhile old Mcbeardy was in his tower studying magic with maybe one apprentice and it was only when 'the band' had to form back together and deal with something that require the magical nuke that was the Wizard did they get involved. However you mention that to players and it's 'that's not fair, why does everyone else get to do that and I don't!'
Caster players want to have their cake and eat it, it's why a lot of 5e players transitioning to PF2e are upset that they're nolonger the be all and end all, they can't just shutdown encounters with a single spell at high level.
I ran a 5e game for 3 years, the in universe time spanned about 13 years. The story if if you want to call it that, was a bit of a back burner. They could pop in and drop out of it intermittently.
Up until a specific point at which they sometimes got put on a clock and have to either cut and run, and come back later or dig in your heels and do what needs to be done.
If you fuck with an ancient magical thing and it starts doing ancient magical stuff, it may NEVER stop until you or someone stops it.
The setting was A modified Faerun/sword coast. Magic was a way of life and somewhat abundant in certain places like major cities but sparse in more rural areas.
They fucked with an ancient thing found in the Anauroch desert and it started Terraforming the area to make it even more hot and dry.
Eventually it would rip open a portal and breach into the plane of fire. They after fucking with it, stole several component parts of this magical alter leaving it on.
Eventually someone did fix it but it wasn't the party. They took that secret seriously and told not a soul, given thousands that died and all of the harm it caused, that was a good call.
I don't mind leaving D&D, i left it fore completely different reasons. It been now a Heroic Fantasy game with a big part of Heroic isn't a trouble to me, many people like it that way so good for them. The old games i liked are still there and even better trying new games have been the best decision i took. The more diverse games out there the better for everyone. I hope D&D 6th edition changes, in any shape it wants, but bring something new, as so many games are doing today.
Do we know each other?😊 You exactly describe why I quit 5e...
Your videos ending was superb. Well said sir!
I came up with an analogy for the difference between BX/BECMI and 5E.
BX/BECMI is a healthy meal with a scoop of ice cream after. You might not want to eat your Brussels sprouts but it's good for you and I want whats best for my players and after you get to have a reasonable amount of ice cream.
5E is an entire container of ice cream every meal. Yeah I know it tastes good and I know you like it but it's not good for you and I am harming you by constantly giving it to you so I'm not going to do that.
In the short term people might like the cheap and easy "fun' of 5E but in the long term it's not going to make players overall happy. I am not going to give my players what I know is wrong and instead I'm going to give you what I know is right.
Most of 5e's problems can be fixed pretty easily. But at the end of the day, I simply find it encourages meta-play over creativity.
I'm personally not a BECMI player, but I do enjoy this perspective. I find the incentive structure that XP/leveling systems create within a game to be really fascinating. They're all imperfect in their own ways but will create different patterns of play. Personally, while I find the idea of gold equating to XP humorous, it doesn't feel particularly sensible from a diegetic perspective, which is what has always put me off of it.
Mark Hulmes did a great job with D&D 5e and having part of a campaign about managing a settlement and the use of gold and taxes. See Nights of Eveningstar. Maybe he used some of the Companion rules, not sure
I will! Thanks for the info.
your videos, kind of gave focus to my general malaise with 5e, i just ordered the Old-School Essentials players tome, and 1st ed adnd players handbook and unearthed arcana,
The system I love that answers these questions and more that are better rules.
This ttrpg is D100 Dungeon.
XP earned by skill tests crits and fumbles. Treasure spent on inbetween heals, gear &
equipment upgrades and kingdom Stocks & realistates.
Plus to hit slots on armor & equipment for dedigration purposes; also enemy reaction table all to make combat more quick and fun.
I stopped playing 5E because I broke the game first time playing. And I played 3.5 for a while.
I'd say 5th edition please more like an anime with that description than a superhero work
I wonder how hold BECMI Berserker is? I started playing D&D in the late 70s and while I have played many other games (GURPS, Vampire, Torg, Rifts, etc) all of my D&D and AD&D books are genuine TSR-era stuff before their acquisition by the coastal spellcasters. Never played any 'E' after 2e. A few years ago at the request of a younger guy wanting to do DM for his group I read the 5e books and marveled that it didn't even remind of D&D! It's just something else entirely. Luckily it's a great time to play real D&D! There are POD reprints of the core books for AD&D 1e & 2e and you can get a wonderful hardcover POD of the Rules Cyclopedia to play a BECMI game. The BECMI pdfs can be legally purchased now too although WotC doesn't offer a print copy (something you can pretty easily remedy yourself via Lulu, etc). There's also OSRIC, For Gold & Glory and a new print version of Swords & Wizardry due out in a few day! Don't call it a comeback, old school never went away!🧙🐲🧝🧝♀🏹⚔🔥👏
Over 50. 🙂
I'm a player in a 5e game. I don't feel like I'm playing D&D.
I'm an elf wizard, makes perfect sense. My fellow adventures are a drow rogue, a catfolk ranger, a frogfolk ranger, some wolffolk thing, and an elephantfolk cleric.
This isn't D&D, it's a furry simulator and I can't stand it.
The best descriptor I’ve heard is that 5e is like the canteena at Mos Eisley.
@@becmiberserker The Mos Eisley Cantina had some semblance to cohesion within the setting. 5e character race (oh, sorry, it's "species" now) selection doesn't have any of that. Everyone suffers from main-character syndrome.