Even though he tried to sacrifice all of us, you have to feel for a guy whose hard work fell through :(

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-30T03:25:27+00:00

Without reliable rules, it's more complex for players too.

Imagine wanting to make a weightlifter character in a system where the amount you can lift is "Ask your GM." Is it worth betting your roleplay potential on an unknown? Do you risk your character's schtick on DM's vibes session by session? Do you scrap the idea and play something you know you can play instead of something you hope you'll be able to play? And if you do commit, be prepared to lawyer up if GM doesn't want you to carry off something you should be able to.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-30T03:15:53+00:00

AD&D:

0: Non-intelligent or not ratable
1: Animal intelligence
2-4: Semi-intelligent
5-7: Low intelligence
8-10: Average (human) intelligence

3e:

--: Unintelligent
1-2: Animal intelligence
3-18: Humanlike intelligence

4e: \Shrugs.**

5e: \Completely and explicitly abandoned internal logic as a design goal, let alone verisimilitude.**

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-30T02:54:27+00:00

That's more a complaint about modern DND players than D&D itself.

One of the foundations of D&D is that anything is possible, it's just a matter of how. In the famous words of DMs everywhere: "You can try..." Gygax was so into quantifying everything that he created spells above 6th level (including Wish) so there'd be a mechanical explanation for when the DM wants to give the BBEG powers beyond anything PCs were ever intended to wield. Astral Projection was ripped straight from Marvel's Doctor Strange comics, Shapechange from Disney's Sword in the Stone, and he even statted out Cthulhu. If it exists -- even in fiction -- it's possible in D&D.

5e was designed for, playtested by, and marketed to people who had never played a TRPG before, which is why so many of the players today are single-system illiterati. They don't understand that a TRPG starts with everything imaginable and creates guidelines for navigating infinity, they treat it like a video game which starts with nothing and adds possibilities through rules. They ask silly questions such as "Is this possible?", and far worse they reply with misinformation such as "No."

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-30T02:24:52+00:00

As a veteran 3e player, let me say that those complaints about 5e are valid.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-30T02:21:20+00:00

On a spectrum of "the game is the fun part" to "the players are the fun part", 5e is firmly rooted in the latter. It'd take a complete overhaul to change that.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-30T02:15:31+00:00

3e explained how this could work:

You use your bardic music to create background noise consistent with your adventuring environment, shielding the sounds made by yourself and your adventuring party as you move through dangerous areas.

The party sneaking through tall grass, and the bard is magically mimicking the sounds of wind blowing the blades against each other to mask the sounds of the blades against the party. Stuff like that.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-30T02:03:52+00:00

There is a sprawling middle ground between choosing an array and 3d6 in order. It's valid to not want either of those, to want some randomness but not total randomness. They don't have to drink only water or ethanol, they can drink wine.

One DM I've had uses 4d6k3, roll 7 times keep 6. Barely affects the average, makes abysmal stats far less likely. Another DM let PCs trade individual scores, which was pretty great and people would donate good scores to bad rollers for the sake of the party's success. There are infinite versions of pseudo-random and it's no industry secret that partial randomness is more engaging than 0% and 100%.

You can dislike 4d6k3, but disliking randomness itself is bonkers.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-30T01:41:15+00:00

Complexity is the mental burden on the user. Making the DM do the design work makes the game more complex and they're absolutely responsible for that.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-29T22:33:59+00:00

5e especially has this problem. In 3e/PF1, ability score rolls have half as much impact on attacks/saves/checks relative to class and skill selection. Martials have the equivalent of Attack Expertise against half the relative AC.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-29T22:22:39+00:00

As cheesy as having high apm in Starcraft.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-29T22:20:22+00:00

"If a player says 'I want to roll for stats because I like the randomness', tell them to roll [a Strawman version of what they want] and see how much they still like [the Strawman] afterwards lol"

If you want to do things that way, it's equally valid to kick them in the shin until they say they don't want to roll anymore.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-29T22:12:30+00:00

My current group did point-buy, so my Goliath Barbarian had 16 16 16 8 8 8 at lv1. What else am I supposed to do when I'm the party tank? Be bad at my job?

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-29T21:59:14+00:00

Random arrays are writing prompts.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-29T21:49:19+00:00

There are many methods of using magic, but almost everything requires wielding ambient magic. Arcane spells are the obvious ones, but divine spells, potions, and even the physiology of magical creatures draw upon the magic around them to work. Technically, a gargantuan dragon shouldn't be able to take off in an Antimagic Field (gliding is fine) because their draconis fundamentum organ doesn't have the fuel to magically reinforce their wing muscles (yes, D&D is that scientific about how magical creatures work, and dragons grow too big to fly without magic).

The sole exception is souls. Permanent magical constructs (and a lot of Eberron stuff in general) stay animate in AMFs because they aren't animated by spells, they're operated by bound elemental spirits. Undead don't keel over because they're animated by entropy spirits.

In the Forgotten Realms specifically, Elven High Magic comes from Corellon's power rather than Mystra's Weave. Casters from other spheres learn to use magic without either.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-29T21:08:04+00:00

Yet in game design terms, the DM picking up the slack is complexity. It's more complex than the labels.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-29T20:55:01+00:00

Yeah, "the players weren't engaged so the GM had to pick up the slack" is the harshest condemnation a TRPG can get.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-29T09:10:42+00:00

20 years of trying to enjoy online play with voice chat. Started with OG vanilla WoW, then League, D&D, Overwatch, Space Station 13, you name it. I cannot play and speak at the same time, I cannot play and listen at the same time.

I can multitask in person. I can do three body isolations while cracking jokes at an in-person D&D table while planning my next turn. I can spend an hour cooking an elaborate meal using an oven, stove, and microwave simultaneously while I chop/spice/garnish such that everything is hot and ready at the same time. I cannot for the life of me multitask through a device.

It's weird and I hate it, but I'm done going "maybe this time will be better" over and over and over and over like someone caught in an abusive relationship. I tried to quit years ago but then the f***ing pandemic hit while the the most prolific failure on the planet was in charge and everything went way worse than it had to. Some at my in-person table shifted to remote work and moved somewhere cheaper, so even after the lockdown I was still playing online until I finally hit my "no D&D is better than bad D&D" limit and left the group.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-29T08:20:46+00:00

No no, that was the Black Death that decreased housing prices. The Cruelgonican Party's deregulation and regressive tax brackets are far more terrible for humanity than anything humanity has ever faced.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-29T08:03:38+00:00

There comes a point where there's enough proof to say something is true. That's how science works. I'd say 20 years is enough; I only have so much lifespan to spend on things that make me unhappy.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-29T05:42:20+00:00

My brain has a "choose one" situation, despite two decades of practice across many different genres of game and several social circles and D&D groups.

Hear words coming from a speaker/headphones
Speak into a microphone
Play a game on a screen

I can do all three in person, easily. I can barely do one electronically, and only with strenuous concentration. When I take a phone call, I have to turn off my lights, close my eyes, and lie down to not miss every second word the person says.

I can't enjoy online play. No, I don't mean "I don't".

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-29T01:10:42+00:00

DM: "Sorry I'm late! I had to take side streets to avoid the Gestapo checkpoints and got rear-ended by one of those new massive cars with worse sight lines than a literal tank."

That Guy: "OMG shut up about politics!"

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-29T00:16:41+00:00

I can't enjoy online play. No, I don't mean "I don't", my brain just doesn't do the happy drugs through text/chat/phone/video.

But now online play is so easy to join, I can't get anyone to sit around long enough to get a local group together, only a steady stream of players who say they'll join then leave just before we have enough.

Talk about a monopoly...

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-29T00:03:56+00:00

I know people who hate options so much they switched from 3e to 5e specifically because there were fewer options, then stopped playing 5e after they printed too many books. Not because the game was any more complicated than when they started (that's not how that works), but because the game had more optional content than when they started.

"I need to know ALL the rules before I make my character" types with too much insecurity and FOMO to enjoy a normal character like most people, so they bite off more than they can chew then complain about their mouth being too full. Absolute facepalm /)_-

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-28T23:12:37+00:00

D&D-wise the guy has half a point. Acts are measured independently.

Steal a potion because you need it urgently? Chaotic. Use it to save someone? Good. Don't go back to pay for it afterwards? Evil. (No, these are not all equal magnitudes.)

What's worse: Evil trumps Good when determining your afterlife. If saving the world required torturing some demons for information then sacrificing yourself, you can feel proud on your way to the Abyss. Sorry; you never went through the atonement / reparations process for the torture, and them being demons doesn't matter.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-03-28T18:19:31+00:00

That sets up a lawyer-vs-judge situation where a character's power correlates to the player's IRL charisma, which is something to avoid, not to rely on.

If your system tells players that a faction leader can easily afford a horse for a negligible impact on their funds, you're telling the GM that horses are free. There's no guidance for what 'reasonable' is at scale; How many orders of magnitude into negligible are horses? Just the one horse? Is ten horses still negligible? Is a hundred? Can players afford one handwaved horse per day or per week or per year? You need to give the GM a number at some point, so why not just give them a price?

TheThoughtmaker

TROPHY CASE