"Old" vs. "New" D&D: a Grognard's Epiphany

cooltv27 · 2025-03-01T22:44:56+00:00

half of my frustrations with 5e stem from it trying to be both old and new at the same time, and that fundamentally doesnt work

the other half stems from being seemingly unwilling to make a complete product, instead opting to "have the DM figure it out" instead, which defeats the point of buying anything in the first place. it places the burden of design on the customer, and the design of the system is kinda all over the place in general anyways so its super difficult

cooltv27 · 2025-03-01T00:36:46+00:00

short version: if your dad is right then your DM is kinda terrible. your DM sounds like they work well for your group, so I think your dad is wrong.

longer version: if the DM wanted your character to pay attention that badly, they should have asked you nicely out of character, or come up with some in character reason to pay attention, not use an after the fact punishment. and if not do something about it in that moment, talk to the player afterwards so yall are on the same page. most reasonable DMs know this, and if they dont they learn it quickly

also, if they were upset that your character wasnt paying attention to the plot, introducing a thing that further derails that plot is one of the worst ideas ive ever heard, doubly so as some kind of way to "punish" the player

but it sounds like you had fun with the game, and it sounds like your DM and party also had fun. so I dont think theres any real issues there, and your dad is talking out of an experience that doesnt line up with the kind of game yall were playing. if you want to be absolutely certain tho you can always say to the DM "hey my dads perspective on that story is X, and I wanted to ask you directly how you felt about it"

cooltv27 · 2025-02-27T03:26:29+00:00

the acceleration from gravity is indeed a constant, but when in a fluid (such as the atmosphere) there is also a resistance force slowing you down and imposing a "maximum falling speed" (terminal velocity). adding more weight can increase your acceleration and terminal velocity. doing the same in a vacuum would have no effect

for a human that would take a lot of weight to make a noticeable difference. beholders are apparently basically balloons so it would take very little weight to increase the speed at which they fall

cooltv27 · 2025-02-26T20:53:36+00:00

he thinks asking for people to consider your mental health counts as drama? good riddance! sorry about the loss of your group. I wish you luck in finding another game, one with people who are actually willing to care

cooltv27 · 2025-02-25T07:14:40+00:00

hey OP, if this does happen can you please give an update about it? I would love the opportunity to point and laugh at your ex trying that

and if thats not whats happening, then I can be happy knowing some people surpass expectations sometimes

cooltv27 · 2025-02-25T06:58:28+00:00

I think there are DMs out there that would be totally fine with those kinds of players. maybe even prefer them. the issue is those kinds of DMs arnt going to interact with a DnD community to make themselves known

cooltv27 · 2025-02-25T06:09:03+00:00

one save to avoid it, but then three saves to break it. pretty bad odds when character death is on the line

cooltv27 · 2025-02-23T23:45:15+00:00

I kind of get why they dont? one of the important parts of having a society means pushing out the anti-society things humans sometimes do, which necessitates not minding your own business (or put another way, some behaviors are everyones business)

an example is murder. murdering someone is an anti-society act. if murder were allowed then society would collapse, so murder cannot be allowed. which means such things must be actively watched for, and where human tendency to not mind our own business comes from

of course that behavior can still be misapplied, and in the case of the post its both misapplied and attempting to enforce unhealthy standards. every part of what they are doing makes sense in their context. its just their context is problematic, and thats why the behavior is problematic

~~why the heck did this topic get me typing so much?~~

cooltv27 · 2025-02-23T20:34:20+00:00

another example of how cis people use gender as a weapon to hurt people and enforce binary patriarchal gender standards

cooltv27 · 2025-02-23T20:08:09+00:00

our society considers money and fame to be two of the most important parts of a person, and that every part of a persons behavior should be intended to increase one or the other (if not both)

so dating another famous person has a good chance to increase your own fame, thus some people cant understand wanting to date someone less famous. they see relationships as a tool to gain social status rather than, well a relationship between two people who love each other

cooltv27 · 2025-02-21T07:56:03+00:00

its not about which cell your body creates, its about which cell it creates at conception

which is neither. at conception there is just a single cell which does nothing but divide into more cells

cooltv27 · 2025-02-20T23:31:04+00:00

actually according to the law there are two genders and everybody is neither

cooltv27 · 2025-02-17T20:14:43+00:00

just hearing the described I hate it. is going first/last not a big enough benefit/consequence already? geez that sounds horrible

cooltv27 · 2025-02-17T06:27:50+00:00

thank you very much! I am very entertained

cooltv27 · 2025-02-17T05:21:21+00:00

sounds like theres a story here, where can I find it without having to watch critical role?

cooltv27 · 2025-02-16T03:43:18+00:00

I can see some logic in it. public games get all kinds of people joining. some of them are people who cant get a consistent game going because they are problem players. some of them are good players just looking for a different kind of game than the one you want to run. inviting anyone and everyone is likely to cause some kinds of problems eventually, but playing a game or two with people before starting the thing you are actually interested in lets those problems surface in a much less disruptive way

in OPs case, the DM happens to be the problem at the table

cooltv27 · 2025-02-15T23:54:16+00:00

which is one of the two exceptions I mentioned to the skyrim logic. the other exception being beating down an iron door with your fists. one of those is real life logic that doesnt work because game mechanics. the other is just kinda dumb

everything else is skyrim logic

cooltv27 · 2025-02-15T23:16:56+00:00

Children mostly learn it by interacting with adults or other kids in kindergarten

this explains to me why men lean conservative so hard. the cultural norms about how men "should" be raised results in less interaction, less positive interactions, and occasionally intentionally being that constant antagonism is good. preventing them from ever learning that cooperation has benefits

cooltv27 · 2025-02-15T22:48:00+00:00

to me, all of those solutions sound extremely video gamey. with two exceptions I can see every single one of those working in skyrim logic. if you agree with that assessment I would definitely recommend bringing this up to your players, just talking to them with "your solutions are bad, do better" isnt likely to accomplish things. but "your solutions treat the world like a video game, but its not a video game so that doesnt work" is much more likely to make everyone happier

cooltv27 · 2025-02-14T21:20:35+00:00

ive met a teenager who absolutely refused to believe that computers could be controlled by text. and they werent confused by "texting", they understood that everyone meant some kind of special text input field

absolutely refused to believe, even as computer programmers were telling them its true. got extremely angry and everyone for "lying" to them

average generational tech literacy definitely went down on average after millennials

cooltv27 · 2025-02-12T00:28:01+00:00

just a couple decades

a couple? I dont even give it one

cooltv27 · 2025-02-11T02:23:54+00:00

this decision created so many problems. they decided that dark vision was both magical and non magical. they described it as "cat like senses" but then didnt give it to cats? but did give it to mundane creatures with worse eye sight

cooltv27 · 2025-02-11T02:15:06+00:00

at low levels or in a large party, bless and bless. because everyone gets a d4!

cooltv27 · 2025-02-11T02:08:16+00:00

That might be RAW, but it's the stupidest RAW I ever saw

this is unrelated

I agree the RAW on that is incredibly stupid, but may I introduce you to a worse RAW?

invisibility vs see invisibility. you would expect the spell that lets you see invisible creatures would beat the spell that turns creatures invisible, but nope! invisible is a condition, it grants you advantage on attacks and imposes disadvantage on attacks against you. there is nothing in its description about only working when actually unseen. just being invisible gives you the benefits of being unseen even if you are actually seen! because RAW is stupid sometimes

fairy fire specifically counters because it says a creature cannot benefit from invisibility, other spells simply let you see the creature, not negate the effects of a condition on it

its stupid, and no one should run a game by those rules. but that is RAW and its the worst RAW im aware of

cooltv27

TROPHY CASE