this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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That would be anything produced after 3.5. The brand has been going down for a long time. That's not to say there is nothing good in the current 5e, just for me it seems like it lost its soul with corporate oversight.
I moved to Pathfinder 2e and I couldn't be happier. The only issue I have is that one of my players is Mercer-coded (is that a thing?) and really hates any time a skill, class, or spell isn't a 1:1 copy of DnD. He recently grabbed Bane as part of a feat for his barbarian and learned it isn't the same as DnD Bane and had a meltdown.
That sounds like a miserable person to play with
We're all close friends outside of the game and we are all used to each other's quirks. It's a pain sometimes, but he does genuinely enjoy the game, though. He'd only played 2 campaigns of DnD before-hand (Strahd and Frostmaiden), but has listened to every episode of Critcal Role. I decided to homebrew a full 1-20 campaign for the group as an introduction to Pathfinder so we could all (GM included) get a taste for it across the entire span of character growth, and it's been a learning experience for us all.
I don't understand why being mercer-coded would make them hate anything not dnd, mercer plays various systems when his friends do oneshots, and knows several systems.
He seems like an asshole though.
Mercer as in a merchant of textiles? I guess that's wrong but it would be hilarious if textile merchants are famous for that behaviour :D
4e was D&D for people who would rather be playing WoW.
5e is a watered-down anemic shadow of 3.5.
That's a common way of putting down 4e, but it's not so. I have no interest whatsoever in WoW but I really liked 4e. 4e's approach was to build a very consistent and rigorously-defined framework for the game, and then build its various elements (classes, monsters, abilities, etc.) strictly within that framework. I think it actually hit a very nice sweet spot; the framework was sufficiently flexible that a huge amount of interesting and distinctive content could be made, but it was also well-defined enough and simple enough to understand and apply that everything "just worked." You could play as a fighter for a whole bunch of levels and then pick up a completely different character sheet for a wizard and you'd find that most of the mechanics worked the same. Combat was very positional, with lots of abilities that allowed you to set other players up for success, which encouraged teamwork and player interaction.
It annoys me greatly that WotC tried to set the system up to be dependent on their online tools, failed, and then tore the tools down to leave the wreckage largely unplayable. I can still play a 3.5e campaign just as easily as I did back in the day but it'd be rather hard to play 4e as easily even though I still have the books. The best tools were WotC-owned and they don't allow third parties to fill the void they left when they decided to transition to 5e - presumably to avoid another Pathfinder situation.
I actually quite like the 5th edition, since it simplifies some of the most convoluted/boring areas of the 3rd edition.
Also coming after the 4th edition might have helped quite a bit in the perception
You say simplified, I say dumbed down.
But yeah 4e didn't say an especially high bar.
Pretty unfair take of 5e. Though I will say 5e has a high-level problem. Once you get to like level 11 or 12 there isn’t a whole lot to do until you’re 18 or 19. 3.5 I felt suffered the same issue though.
4 and 5 I think did a a lot to make the game more intuitive and not take 2hrs to resolve a round of combat, 4 just also had a lot of bad mechanics. You call that dumbing it down and anemic but I don’t think that’s a very fair assessment, but to each their own I guess. I for one I’m glad to see a lot of the changes and ideas they brought to the table, in particular 5e. I feel it caters more to RP which I value.
5e i’ve actually come to really appreciate. It’s just crunchy enough while also leaving room for interpretation and bending in a way that 3.5 I felt just didn’t really invite. Obviously you can do whatever you want, the goal is to have fun, but certain systems invite more shenanigans than others. And I personally like allowing shenanigans. My players get the most invested when they throw out an absurd idea and I immediately start walking them through how we are going to resolve it.
Maybe I have just gotten more experienced with TTRPG‘s and more comfortable going off the cuff, but I really do feel like 5e opened that door in a more inviting way if that makes sense.
That being said, I will always appreciate how with 3.5 it’s pretty difficult to come up with a situation that there isn’t an explicit rule for!
2.5 was my fave. I never got into anything after it (at least pen-and-paper)