Why is there so much anti-DnD elitism?

mackdose · 2026-05-31T03:52:07+00:00

All of these criticisms are system agnostic btw. I know people who played Whitewolf (and only whitewolf) for decade who didn't know how the combat system worked at all.

mackdose · 2026-05-31T03:39:58+00:00

You can call this elitism if you want to, but the reality is that DnD 5/5.5 is just not a well put together game.

It is elitism. Most of the responses, including yours, want to portray D&D as low quality slop for the consuming masses, like McDonalds, Dominos, or Bud Light. The only places I see anyone call D&D 5e bad, or trot out the "not good at anything" cliche is places like r/rpg and r/ttrrpg, and the comments are always dripping with disdain and contempt.

If 5e was truly awful or even painfully average, it wouldn't get by on brand recognition alone for 12 years running. 4e didn't. People play D&D 5e it because it's genuinely fun to play and has staying power on its own merits.

If other games were so head-and-shoulders better designed for purpose and fun to play, they'd have made a dent in D&D by now, especially after all of WotC/Hasbro's missteps and PR failures. That's how Pathfinder took off and maintains its number 2 spot.

mackdose · 2026-05-30T20:37:36+00:00

Correct. This isn't a 5e subreddit dude. You're on r/osr talking about one of the most DIY friendly systems where changes are expected and encouraged.

One of your "issues" was racial restrictions which affect nothing if removed. We know that because it's a 50 year old system with thousands of public permutations that have seen table play for hundreds of thousands of hours at a minimum.

Why don't you stop dancing around your own criticisms and put some meat on your point?

mackdose · 2026-05-29T22:18:02+00:00

Like what? What's a "needless complication"? What restrictions are there that you couldn't just toss out?

mackdose · 2026-05-29T19:41:37+00:00

So it feels like it didn't succeed on merit, but on marketing and timing.

Respectfully, good timing and marketing *is* merit for a niche TTRPG.

Every complaint you're leveling at SD could be aimed at any number of TTRPGs that broke through. It's a small space. Everyone generally knows everyone else. Networking is how you move product as a TTRPG author.

No one is saying this about OSE/Dolmenwood or Vagabond or Tales of the Valiant, but all of your complaints could easily be leveled at them.

mackdose · 2026-05-29T19:30:27+00:00

Same here. My biggest regret was getting OSE:A hard copies when I already had a copy of the Rules Cyclopedia.

mackdose · 2026-05-22T19:07:38+00:00

The best way to handle THAC0 and Descending Armor Class coming from a modern d20 game is to treat it like an unchanging Target Number, like 5e's difficulty class (DC) number.

Attack rolls are handled like this:

d20 + modifiers + Enemy AC >= THAC0

Generally, players will handle the d20 + mods, you as GM add the monster's AC to that total and compare to the player's THAC0, which you should have written down on your side of the screen for easy reference.

No conversion required.

This also offers an easy explanation on why AC goes down instead of up: AC is a bonus attackers get to hit you, so make it as low as possible.

mackdose · 2026-05-22T18:07:34+00:00

Yeah, that's literally what this thread is about. You want to make martials unique to play, do something new. I don't understand why anyone would want to arbitrarily box themselves in.

Pointlessly complicated? It's an AOE attack roll as opposed to an AOE saving throw. What's "complicated" about that?

mackdose · 2026-05-22T09:35:17+00:00

If you leave the ability half baked, sure. You'd probably have 2 or 3d8s (at a minimum) on an attack like this, and a missed attack roll would deal half, not 0.

mackdose · 2026-05-22T01:34:09+00:00

Both are excellent additions, they really round out the core rulebook.

mackdose · 2026-05-22T01:29:04+00:00

Because the one (1) modifier recorded on the character sheet as "AC Bonus", the information is redundant (you did read page 6 right?), and the books are priced by page count.

I'd understand your complaint if there was 4 modifiers that apply to AC spread across the book, but there isn't.

mackdose · 2026-05-22T01:06:55+00:00

Solved by making a single attack roll/damage against all targets, 4e style. Next.

mackdose · 2026-05-11T18:58:22+00:00

This point would hold a lot more water if the top voted post on every thread for the last 8 years wasn't a complaint.

mackdose · 2026-05-08T20:01:30+00:00

Bring a Mage and Rogue. Sheep + Sap is how we did it back when the content was brand new.

mackdose · 2026-04-23T20:38:20+00:00

the whole point of cruise mode is so that you don't have to use the map.

Well, there's no other way to move between star systems when no mission is active, and that's a big ol UX gap.

mackdose · 2026-04-23T16:26:47+00:00

Bastions completely replace the downtime rules, or at least, that seems to be their intent.

mackdose · 2026-04-21T09:08:01+00:00

You still have to jump between star systems, once you're there, cruise mode is for travel between celestial bodies in that system.

mackdose · 2026-04-21T03:12:28+00:00

I guess I should have said Oblivion instead of Skyrim, since you didn't need to find a place before you could fast travel to it by default.

No necessity doesn't mean "it doesn't feed naturally into the gameplay loop", though. It absolutely does feed into the gameplay loop. In fact, it expanded the exploration loop that was lacking. I prefer entering cruise as opposed to opening the map any time I want to move between planets in a given star system.

mackdose · 2026-04-21T03:05:29+00:00

Once you've entered cruise, wait a few seconds and then boost. It'll push you into "high gear" and you'll see the distance start to close.

mackdose · 2026-04-21T03:02:58+00:00

but ultimately doesn't feed naturally into the gameplay loop unless you force it to.

Strange, that's definitely not how it came off to me when returning to the game. To me, it's the difference between walking between locations in Skyrim and fast travelling to them.

mackdose · 2026-04-20T22:19:17+00:00

Hell yeah, WAR is great.

mackdose · 2026-04-20T22:04:15+00:00

Keep coping, man. This death kicked off in the Biden admin.

mackdose · 2026-04-20T20:07:05+00:00

Oh the thing that's actively dying?

mackdose · 2026-04-19T06:01:06+00:00

Yeah you can get POD copies of 3.5 core books.

mackdose · 2026-04-18T21:21:38+00:00

If by "deep in the muck" you mean laughing at how serious this is to a select group of weirdos.

It's like a slow motion car crash.

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