You wanted to know what we thought, well here it is. Our opinion of the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons. What’s to love, what’s to hate, and what’s to compare endlessly to Pathfinder; we cover it all!
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3 thoughts on “Episode 42: D&D 5th Edition, or Bringing Back the Fun”
First off, love the podcast & everything you folks do!
This is off the main topic of the particular episode, but I just wanted to touch on a statement that I’ve heard expressed a couple of times regarding Shadowrun and it ‘not allowing for characters that take a strong moral stance’. I know you guys know as well as I do that one of the most awesome points of that setting is the absolute depth and breadth of its source material, and getting stuck in the rut of assuming a purely shadowrunner or street campaign is the only possibility (and the expression of so) is doing a great setting a huge disservice!
I understand very well the draw of shooting people in the face for money and certainly give you the ease of the ‘Get job. Plan job. Do Job. Profit.’ adventuring paradigm ;), but there’s so much more in that world that can be explored, and no reason that it should be pigeonholed to the assumed campign concept.
Thanks a ton for everything you guys do!
– Todd
Heya Abstruse!
Thanks for the recognition on the most recent ‘cast. I just wanted to clarify that I wasn’t necessarily advocating goody-two-shoes or Paladin-type play – just that it’s pretty easy to come up with genre-fitting concepts that tread the lighter shades of grey. A ‘hooder’ game where the pcs try to keep their neighborhood safe from organized crime influences could very easily satisfy a player who wants to play someone who does the right thing. Or kick it back to classic shadowpunk where the group has a strong NeoAnarchist bent and the game centers around a small group of scrappy underdogs trying to keep some corp from doing underhanded nastiness to people who can’t protect themselves.
Like you said, the setting will definitely chew up and spit out any sort Dudley Do-Right, and such monstrosities should be put out of their misery quickly in a fiery blaze of glory. At the same time, not everything has to be about mercenary wetwork. There are plenty of genre fitting examples in film, novels, and SR fiction of the little guy struggling (and perishing) while trying to do the right thing.
Thanks again, and I think you’ve got a great idea for Mr Fannon.
– Todd
ps. In the sixth world, those leaf eating Paladins are just about the worst of the lot anyway 😉 Damn Pixies.
Just finished listening to the episode, it was enjoyable as always. First let me say that I like how 5th edition looks, it feels like it has taken lessons from all of its previous editions as well as its competitors. That said there is something that has bothered about 5th edition or rather peoples reactions to it. This relates to the Inspiration mechanic. I like the idea but there are a couple of things that I think people are overlooking. The first, which is not a reflection on the mechanic, system or its creators, is I am sick of Inspiration being called innovative. Several games have had similar mechanics in place, in the core rules, long before 4th edition, much less 5th edition, existed. Two that pop immediately to mind are Exalted, by White Wolf, and 7th Sea, by Alderac Entertainment Group. Both of these systems contained rules that were similar to this rule.
The second thing is this, some people have talked about Inspiration like it is some godsend that totally fixes role-playing in RPGs. In the end it is a system that still requires adjudication by the GM and is therefore subject to being ignored, misused, abused, and forgotten just like any other system. I watched with the previous two systems I mentioned, as the GM was incredibly stingy with acknowledging them, or in the heat of the moment forgot them. I myself going in with the best of intentions after watching this from others often forgot to apply those systems and their rewards, even in the case of 7th Sea, where the system in question, Drama Dice, was incredibly ingrained into the system.
None of this is to say that I think Inspiration is a bad system, far from it. I simply want people to remember that for the system to work as intended it must be paid attention to and acknowledged by the GM fairly and generously.