Do you think the people who make Dr Farts want to play with other people who make Dr Farts type characters? And the people who make 1500 dmg/turn combat monsters, do they want to play with other combat monsters?
I feel like sometimes no. Sometimes people want to be the odd one out. Which sucks, because a group that’s homogeneous on this aspect I think can work pretty well. If everyone’s a combat monster the GM can go crazy. But if there’s just one or two combat monsters, now they have to figure out how to keep it fun for them and also Bob The Fighter that hits for 1d8+2 each turn.
Somewhat similarly, as a character with a good variety of options available in combat, I worry somewhat about the Ranger and Warlock I play with whose turns are pretty much always “I shoot the [x]”, but everyone seems to be having a good time so I guess combat gameplay isn’t really their bag, idk.
Rogue is worse. I played a rogue for a while and it didn’t really deliver a great experience. Every combat was “I shoot, move, cunning action hide”.
Scouting was largely outclassed by the wizard’s familiar, and even more so the pact of the chain familiar. Splitting the party is tedious and risky.
One GM tried to make a system to abstract scouting- you’d make some checks and get information and maybe trouble. But that guy liked PbtA way more than me, and it clearly influenced his design, because pretty much every time you used this system something bad would happen. I don’t play these games to be a fuck up. I want to be exceedingly competent in my niche.
I guess some of that is up to individual GM style, but I think some of it is on the system itself.
In my experience, dr farts is the result of an overabundance of options and lack of foresight. They don’t know what it’d be like, so they try it. Giving players a silly character swap voucher, good for just one session per campaign, solves that. Similar deal for the overjuiced character. (Not usable during story boss encounters)
Once people recognize that the boundaries are there to improve their experience, not detract from it, they usually follow the flow of the game and build on others’ characters. If they don’t, chairs are easy to fill.
I’ve had a lot of DND players, often people that exclusively play DND, tell me they like it that way. They like that there’s basically no rules for conflict outside of combat. “Just talk it out” and “we’re here to role play stop looking at your sheet”.
Personally, not my taste. If we’re just going to “talk it out” I feel like we should write a book instead. That or actually rip out the stunted social rules in DND. That would help the annoying thing where the real life Sales Guy brings his whole personality into his 8 Cha Fighter.
But I also think a lot of those people have never really played anything else, and like dnd’s “barely any rules” better than whatever fantasy they’re imagining.
I like that games with working social rules can let someone who’s shy or quiet play someone socially powerful, just like a physically weak person can play a strong barbarian.
A significant part of the culture that has formed around 5e is about “having it all”. And usually by ignoring the (admittedly weak) rules that do exist, rather than exploiting actual gaps. So, you can frankenstein together a caster that has martial proficiency in armour (or even melee weapons), with the only compromise being your capstone abilities (which often are very expendable). And then you can metagame away your shitty social abilities by “roleplaying”.
I’m not going to defend 5e – I genuinely think it’s a poorly made game, and place the blame for that entirely on the execuitives – but the reason why so many people refuse to try something else is because they like the exploits that they believe exist, even though they are totally socially constructed.
Do you think the people who make Dr Farts want to play with other people who make Dr Farts type characters? And the people who make 1500 dmg/turn combat monsters, do they want to play with other combat monsters?
I feel like sometimes no. Sometimes people want to be the odd one out. Which sucks, because a group that’s homogeneous on this aspect I think can work pretty well. If everyone’s a combat monster the GM can go crazy. But if there’s just one or two combat monsters, now they have to figure out how to keep it fun for them and also Bob The Fighter that hits for 1d8+2 each turn.
The people who want to do 1500 dmg/turn probably want to be playing 3.5
Got muh bag-o-rats and muh Great Cleave, time to start whirlin’…
Somewhat similarly, as a character with a good variety of options available in combat, I worry somewhat about the Ranger and Warlock I play with whose turns are pretty much always “I shoot the [x]”, but everyone seems to be having a good time so I guess combat gameplay isn’t really their bag, idk.
Rogue is worse. I played a rogue for a while and it didn’t really deliver a great experience. Every combat was “I shoot, move, cunning action hide”.
Scouting was largely outclassed by the wizard’s familiar, and even more so the pact of the chain familiar. Splitting the party is tedious and risky.
One GM tried to make a system to abstract scouting- you’d make some checks and get information and maybe trouble. But that guy liked PbtA way more than me, and it clearly influenced his design, because pretty much every time you used this system something bad would happen. I don’t play these games to be a fuck up. I want to be exceedingly competent in my niche.
I guess some of that is up to individual GM style, but I think some of it is on the system itself.
In my experience, dr farts is the result of an overabundance of options and lack of foresight. They don’t know what it’d be like, so they try it. Giving players a silly character swap voucher, good for just one session per campaign, solves that. Similar deal for the overjuiced character. (Not usable during story boss encounters)
Once people recognize that the boundaries are there to improve their experience, not detract from it, they usually follow the flow of the game and build on others’ characters. If they don’t, chairs are easy to fill.
False. Dr. Farts is the result of decades long self experimentating IBS research gone wrong.
If you’re playing d&d for the combat alone, you’re doing it wrong
If you’re playing D&D for not-the-combat you’re doing it wrong, basically every other RPG system handles that better
I’ve had a lot of DND players, often people that exclusively play DND, tell me they like it that way. They like that there’s basically no rules for conflict outside of combat. “Just talk it out” and “we’re here to role play stop looking at your sheet”.
Personally, not my taste. If we’re just going to “talk it out” I feel like we should write a book instead. That or actually rip out the stunted social rules in DND. That would help the annoying thing where the real life Sales Guy brings his whole personality into his 8 Cha Fighter.
But I also think a lot of those people have never really played anything else, and like dnd’s “barely any rules” better than whatever fantasy they’re imagining.
I like that games with working social rules can let someone who’s shy or quiet play someone socially powerful, just like a physically weak person can play a strong barbarian.
A significant part of the culture that has formed around 5e is about “having it all”. And usually by ignoring the (admittedly weak) rules that do exist, rather than exploiting actual gaps. So, you can frankenstein together a caster that has martial proficiency in armour (or even melee weapons), with the only compromise being your capstone abilities (which often are very expendable). And then you can metagame away your shitty social abilities by “roleplaying”.
I’m not going to defend 5e – I genuinely think it’s a poorly made game, and place the blame for that entirely on the execuitives – but the reason why so many people refuse to try something else is because they like the exploits that they believe exist, even though they are totally socially constructed.