Professional developer and amateur gardener located near Atlanta, GA in the USA.

  • 43 Posts
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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • Is D&D in danger? D&D is in this weird place where it’s in the middle of a lot of things. It’s honestly pretty complex compared to actually rules light systems, but it’s still much less complex than Pathfinder. If folks want more crunch they go to Pathfinder.

    D&D has two pillars. Combat and everything else. I know that WotC defines it differently but generally I think it’s easier to view like this. Everything I’m combat is extremely rigid. Everything outside is pretty flexible. Sure, exploration has more rigid rules than social interactions but I genuinely don’t believe many people use rigid exploration rules. I think a lot of players dislike combat for a big variety of reasons. There are extremely few class-specific special things some classes can do outside of combat. Do fighters get anything special? Not really. And a lot of spells can totally negate specific things other players might be able to contribute.

    It would be really nice to have flexible combat but I don’t think there’s a good way to do it without fundamentally changing the game. Instead, I believe every class needs to have meaningful ways to contribute to each pillar of play that cannot be one-upped by spells.

    Another thing, I believe every class should have the same amount of limited resources more like 4th edition but I don’t think there’s a way to fix that in 5th edition or the new version without fundamentally rewriting everything.


  • I think that it serves two purposes:

    1. Their physical presence makes it clear that the group is taking everyone’s limits seriously. Compare “Just say stop if you don’t like something” to “Everyone has a button. I care about everyone and want everyone to feel comfortable. Press the button if you’re uncomfortable.” The phyiscal aspect makes it extremely clear that the group has gone out of their way to make it a priority. It’s hard to speak up for yourself. It can be awkward. Knowing that the group took it seriously enough to get physical objects for it will help people understand they’re more welcome to stop things.
    2. Pushing a button or tapping something can be a lot easier than saying something. A lot of people can get nonverbal when they’re uncomfortable.