D&D 5e has failed

[Insomniac]

The DMG has been announced as delayed for approximately a month.

Whereas the developers talked ad nauseum about getting rid of Book-A-Month splatbloat and crunch overload, they are not giving any substantive projects for 2015 any definitive dates.

The next book to come out is part two of their Tyranny of Dragons Adventure Path, The Rise of Tiamat, on November 4, 2014 and the delayed DMG slated for a December 9 release. Barring that, the only announced product for 2015 is a Dungeon Master's Screen for the 20th of January 2015. It seems quite bizarre to me that a Player's Handbook would come out in August whereas the Monster Manual would not be out for another 6 weeks and the DMG and Screen would not be out until January of the next year.

Is this an overcorrection? Is the edition failing this badly? Can they simply not produce the content in a timely fashion because the edition is untested, mathematically unsound "vaporware" as FrankTrollman suggests?

Either way, things are not looking good for this edition.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I think that's interesting in that describing an assbackwards place as assbackwards becomes racist when some use it to mean "assbackwards for presumably genetic reasons" rather than just assbackwards unto itself, but that's how language goes I suppose.

Look, saying that a culture with an (arbitrarily) compartmentalizable demographic in it sucks because of sociopolitical reasons gets evaluated differently than saying that a culture sucks because of (racial reasons) or even 'no reason, their culture just sucked'.

For example, Somalia and North Korea are two of the worst places on this planet to live. I would not want to go to either place because the government and society is corrupted by anarchy/totalitarianism and there's no hope for either country getting better anytime soon. That is not racist or demeaning to Somalians or Koreans to point out. Neither are certain snarky comparisons or illusions like comparing Libetariatopia to Somalia or fascism/communism to North Korea. This is true even though people are specifically racist to Somalians and Koreans for reasons that both and don't stem from the shittiness of their countries.

"Dark Ages" is a phrase, much like "Dark Continent", that has to exist in a context. In the case of Dark Ages, that's a phrase targeting "land-locked Western European non-slaves within the confines of the developed (former) Roman Empire but outside Visigothic Spain", and that basically makes it a shitty handwave phrase.

So fucking what? If I want or need to refer to periods within the Open Sewer Ages to something more academically precise (such as if I was making a distinction between Merovingian and Carolingian architecture) then I'll do so. However, the purpose I used 'The Dark Ages' for a couple of pages ago was to snarkily refer to a historical zeitgeist in which people were so downtrodden and underdeveloped that a fucking cathedral was considered the pinnacle of architecture. In that friggin' context I feel that The Dark Ages is a very appropriate moniker. And when making comparisons of D&D's culture to the real world, that will probably be my go-to comparison unless I need to be more precise.

I mean, seriously, fucking listen to yourself. 'The reason why D&D so fetishizes magic weapons is because a really shiny sword was one of the most impressive inventions for land-locked Western European non-slaves within the confines of the developed (former) Roman Empire but outside Visigothic Spain.' Really?

[DSMatticus]

I think the phrase can be used for racist ends and probably has been, sure, so we'll just assume it's an insensitive title. I think that's interesting in that describing an assbackwards place as assbackwards becomes racist when some use it to mean "assbackwards for presumably genetic reasons" rather than just assbackwards unto itself, but that's how language goes I suppose.

It's certainly a term that should just be bypassed for something more specific and direct, such as "Africa in the 19th Century"... a lot like "European Early Middle Ages/Migration Period".

I get that you went all in on a very stupid proposition early on and that has left you in an awkward position, but at this point you are conceding that your analogy was a pile of shit while insisting that it totally wasn't.

Listen: if we abandon the term Dark Continent because of racist undertones (and the fact that it refers to a geographical area and not a period, which has additional uncomfortable implications), and the Dark Ages does not have racist undertones (and refers to a period), then you cannot say "we shouldn't say the Dark Continent... just like we shouldn't say the Dark Ages, am I right?" That's fucking stupid so stop doing it and just abandon that entire fucking line of thought as an embarrassing oopsy - which is exactly what it is.

because baking pejoratives into a title can be misleading and leads to things like forgetting that the period in question also included a flourishing Visigothic kingdom in Spain, the Byzantines keeping their part of the world running very well, trade continuing along the coasts, the reduction of slavery from Roman levels (and Bathilde's suspension of the slave trade in Burgundy), and other trinkets.

The beginning and end of this conversation is that Rome was better than post-Rome. Food, water, sanitation, construction, education; all of these took a massive step backwards during the period in which Rome fell. It is called the Dark Ages because it begins with Europe "unlearning" the solutions to a bunch of already solved problems and as a result tens of millions of people die at a point in history when the population of Europe is measured in tens of millions to begin with.

Did technological progress happen during the Dark Ages? Yes. Has the GDP of the United States grown each year for the past four years? Yes. If you look at the latter of those and declare that the past four years haven't been a period of stifled development and unnecessary human suffering "because growth", then you are a moron. If you look at the former of those and declare that the "so-called Dark Ages" weren't a period of stifled development and unnecessary human suffering "because progress", then you are a moron.

It is very important that everyone understands this: progress is the natural state of human affairs. That is bolded, italicized, and underlined, because you need to read it and you need to understand it and you need to internalize it and take that very important fact with you everywhere you go, especially if the place you are going is a place you are likely to discuss either politics, economics, technology, or history. This is not rhetorical flair. Understanding that simple fact is simply a prerequisite for doing any meaningful analysis in these fields. Lots of people don't understand that fact and still do analysis in these fields, and those people are either idiots or charlatans. Don't be an idiot or a charlatan. Those are both bad things. Down that road lies "it doesn't matter who you vote for, anyway" and "see, austerity is working" and "[my religion] totally isn't hostile to science, promise!"

It is simultaneously true that last year the United States GDP went up by more than the inflation rate and that the United States' failure to adequately respond to the crisis has prolonged and is still prolonging economic hardship for tens of millions of people. Progress is the natural state of affairs, so even as we make mistakes that ruin countless lives as a whole we manage to march forward.

It is simultaneously true that developments happen during the Dark Ages and that the Dark Ages are almost literally the Mad Max remnants of the Roman Empire which preceded them. Progress is the natural state of affairs, so even after things have fallen completely to pieces and brutal and totalitarian regimes (compared to Rome that's saying something) seize and cripple Europe as a whole we managed to march forward.

Because progress is the natural state of affairs, "has progress occurred?" is never a meaningful benchmark. Take my pet video game project for example. I am being lazy, and as a result I am substantially behind where I want to be. But I still have more done today than I did last week. Progress has happened, and at this rate progress will still be happening all the way until I die of old age with a half-finished Terraria clone.

The correct observation is not "what about the wheelbarrow?" The correct observation is "why is it that when you ask people to name inventions out of the Middle Ages they almost universally name things that China invented hundreds of years earlier?"

Now, I could point to specific things you said that are dumb (reduction in slavery? What the fuck do you think a serf is? Are you seriously claiming the Middle Ages are an era of individual autonomy, as opposed to ubiquitous slavery under different names?) But instead I am going to make fun of you for continuing to fail to understand such an incredibly simple issue. It is objectively true that the economy under Clinton was better than it was under Bush even though growth happened under best presidents. Because progress is the natural state of human affairs. When you point to things in the Dark Ages that don't suck as bad as other things in the Dark Ages or things that suck less at the end of the Dark Ages than at the beginning of the Dark Ages as evidence of the assertion that the Dark Ages is an unfairly pejorative term, you're telling us you fundamentally do not understand the act of comparison. You don't get them and can't make them.

[mean_liar]

Chinamen, all around. Or orientals, I guess. Calling them Asians is too square for the Den. TOO COOL 4 SKOOL, or something. That's what this argument boils down to.

I abandoned rural Africa as the Dark Continent as a rhetorical device. It's still a shitty place to live. I will still continue to use niggardly without shame as well, though that comes up about as often (never).

As far as swords, I don't give a fuck. This was simply a stupid aside about the term "Dark Ages", because it isn't in academic vogue and this is the Internet neener neener. We covered swords two pages ago. You think not having pricetags is good because they'd be impossible to price. I think having pricetags is good because players will want to buy and sell this shit, and if a GM wants to treat them as objects d art and assign pricing by fiat that's the GMs call within that game, but I still believe the game's design would be worse for the lack of those pricetag.

Neat aside: northern Europeans in the Early Middle Ages were taller than those in the 16th and 17th centuries. LOL progress.

Neat aside 2: Google Scholar searches for publications after 2000 for ("Dark Ages" -space -digital -cosmic -matter) turns up 15,900 results. The first page lists only five articles out of eleven that have to deal with history. The rest just use the phrase for rhetorical purposes. Searching "Early Middle Ages" turns up 18,900 articles, and all on the first page have to do with history. Of course, these authors are all [EDITED] who need to get hip and dump this PC bullshit and accept the Dark Ages 'cause that's where it's all at, yo, you heard it here first.

[erik]

Neat aside 2: Google Scholar searches for publications after 2000 for ("Dark Ages" -space -digital -cosmic -matter) turns up 15,900 results. The first page lists only five articles out of eleven that have to deal with history. The rest just use the phrase for rhetorical purposes. Searching "Early Middle Ages" turns up 18,900 articles, and all on the first page have to do with history. Of course, these authors are all [EDITED] who need to get hip and dump this PC bullshit and accept the Dark Ages 'cause that's where it's all at, yo, you heard it here first.

So "Dark Ages" is used more rhetorically. Like, by lay folk? Very ieeeeeeenteresting! And most historians prefer to use their own more refined terminology. Peachy for them.

But trying to declare that Dark Ages is a pejorative equivalent to being racist makes you look damned nutty.

[mean_liar]

It's pejorative, but not racist. Hell, its purpose is to be pejorative. I happen to not think that's particularly helpful. Like, a villein doesn't really exist in Rome and probably got raped and killed less often than Roman house slaves and actually enjoyed some protections beyond being valuable property. But Dark Ages! So the villein is worse off for reasons, and Denners will tell you all about them. But actual, published scholars disagree! But those actual, published scholars are assholes, because Dark Ages sounds cooler.

[DSMatticus]

Chinamen, all around. Or orientals, I guess. Calling them Asians is too square for the Den. TOO COOL 4 SKOOL, or something. That's what this argument boils down to.

Of course, these authors are all [EDITED] who need to get hip and dump this PC bullshit and accept the Dark Ages 'cause that's where it's all at, yo, you heard it here first.

Look: you are the closest thing to a racist asshole this discussion has, and you will continue to be the closest thing to a racist asshole this discussion has until Occluded Sun opens his mouth to tell us more about how slavery is freedom.

When Republicans co-opt famous quotes about the holocaust to describe the plight of billionaires facing tax hikes, that is fucking racist. And it is racist exactly because asking billionaires to pay higher taxes is not actually the equivalent of ethnic genocide.

And when you co-opt "the Dark Continent" and "chinamen" to shame people for the use of "the Dark Ages," that is fucking racist. And it is racist exactly because the Dark Ages is not actually the equivalent of a racist pejorative. Which you apparently fucking admit in your latest post. So let's play a little game: I'm going to call you a fucking moron (a pejorative), and I want you to go on an insane and incoherent rant about how I shouldn't call you a moron because racism. And if you aren't willing to be consistent in your batshit insanity and false accusations of racism, then you can either apologize or shut the fuck up. How's that?

So let's play: you're a fucking moron. Now it's your turn.

[Leress]

So essentially, Mean, you want us to use Middle Ages instead of Dark Ages?

[mean_liar]

BUT THEY'RE FROM CHINA

EDIT - On a marginally more serious note, pejorative terms are generally not used precisely because they're pejorative and obfuscating.

Frankly, Dark Continent and Chinaman fell out of vogue precisely because... they were pejorative. Racism creates labels, and labels hoist meaning that isn't useful. But that's also a general comment on labels, and it just so happens that racists like labels. Meanwhile, that dumping of an old term that has become an inaccurate label has now happened to "Dark Ages", for scholarly reasons rather than civil justice reasons, but underlying both is the idea that it's a label that doesn't accurately describe the thing it's trying to describe.

But again, there is the possibility that these academics are all wrong and they're probably all just dumb and Dark Ages is where it's at and we should all be wearing leather jackets and smoking cigarettes behind the gym.

[DSMatticus]

But that's also a general comment on labels, and it just so happens that racists like labels. Meanwhile, that dumping of an old term that has become an inaccurate label has now happened to "Dark Ages", for scholarly reasons rather than civil justice reasons, but underlying both is the idea that it's a label that doesn't accurately describe the thing it's trying to describe.

Transparent retreat is transparent. You have been invoking comparisons to racism the entire fucking time, including in your latest post. You are simultaneously trying to be the same fucking moron you were when you first opened your fucking moron mouth on this topic AND divorce yourself from the fucking moron stance you originally adopted by turning it into a general statement about how pejorative labels are bad because reasons. But pejorative labels and racist pejorative labels are not equivalent, for the exact same reason calling you a fucking moron is not the least bit racist and describing modern North Korea as a shithole is not the least bit racist. And much like calling the eight hundred years after the fall of Rome "the Dark Ages," calling you a fucking moron is a completely accurate pejorative description that probably doesn't get used very often in scholarly articles.

Now: shut the fuck up.

[infected slut princess]

This discussion about "dark ages" and racism is rather stupid and the thread would be more amusing if it returned to the discussion of 5e's pathetic failure.

[Night Goat]

The DMG has been announced as delayed for approximately a month.

Whereas the developers talked ad nauseum about getting rid of Book-A-Month splatbloat and crunch overload, they are not giving any substantive projects for 2015 any definitive dates.

The next book to come out is part two of their Tyranny of Dragons Adventure Path, The Rise of Tiamat, on November 4, 2014 and the delayed DMG slated for a December 9 release. Barring that, the only announced product for 2015 is a Dungeon Master's Screen for the 20th of January 2015. It seems quite bizarre to me that a Player's Handbook would come out in August whereas the Monster Manual would not be out for another 6 weeks and the DMG and Screen would not be out until January of the next year.

Is this an overcorrection? Is the edition failing this badly? Can they simply not produce the content in a timely fashion because the edition is untested, mathematically unsound "vaporware" as FrankTrollman suggests?

Either way, things are not looking good for this edition.

Thank you for posting something on-topic.

[mean_liar]

DSMatticus, I forgive you.

[Username17]

Stealth/Hiding: These rules intentionally rely on DM judgment to adjudicate. DM has to judge situations, whether PC can hide.

Note that his current position is that all the Stealth rules are in fact in the PHB and have always been there, and that's why there isn't any DM stealth advice in the DMG.

-Username17

[mean_liar]

Is that really so different from any other edition though? The GM sets the scene and that determines possibilities for cover and concealment, right? How is this different from that?

[Username17]

Is that really so different from any other edition though? The GM sets the scene and that determines possibilities for cover and concealment, right? How is this different from that?

Well it lacks guidelines. It isn't "you need cover or concealment to hide, here's a vague declaration as what counts as concealment or cover." It's seriously just:

When you try to hide, make a Dexterity (Stealth) check. Until you are discovered or you stop hiding, that check’s total is contested by the Wisdom (Perception) check of any creature that actively searches for signs of your presence.
You can’t hide from a creature that can see you, and if you make noise (such as shouting a warning or knocking over a vase), you give away your position. An invisible creature can't be seen, so it can always try to hide. Signs of its passage might still be noticed, however, and it still has to stay quiet.
In combat, most creatures stay alert for signs of danger all around, so if you come out of hiding and approach a creature, it usually sees you. However, under certain circumstances, the Dungeon Master might allow you to stay hidden as you approach a creature that is distracted, allowing you to gain advantage on an attack before you are seen.

OK, wow. So to start off with, giving away your position is primarily to do with moving silently for which there are no rules. Secondly, sneaking up on creatures is allowed "under certain circumstances," with no indication at all as to what those circumstances might be. Thirdly, you can't hide if creatures "can see you" which is tautological and uniquely unhelpful since if hiding is functioning your enemies don't see you, which boils down to "you can't hide if you aren't hidden and you are hidden if you are hidden" which blows my fucking mind.

So there's basically nothing here. And earlier, Mearls tweeted that it was all a DM thing, but now he's admitting that the DMG doesn't have anything to say about it. So there's nothing and there's never going to be something.

-Username17

[DSMatticus]

mean_liar: really? I have no idea why you are trying to continue this argument in private messages, but I can promise you that that is not a thing that's happening. If you're going to walk away after shitting on the conversation with a bad joke trollpost (which is fine, it has to end somehow, fuck it why not), it is not appropriate to come back an hour later and quietly ask "so, uhh... where were we?" If we're done, then we're done; spare me the bad faith PM's.

[angelfromanotherpin]

An invisible creature can't be seen, so it can always try to hide.

Wait, what? If you already can't be seen, what benefit do you get from hiding?

[mean_liar]

mean_liar: really? I have no idea why you are trying to continue this argument in private messages, but I can promise you that that is not a thing that's happening. If you're going to walk away after shitting on the conversation with a bad joke trollpost (which is fine, it has to end somehow, fuck it why not), it is not appropriate to come back an hour later and quietly ask "so, uhh... where were we?" If we're done, then we're done; spare me the bad faith PM's.

That's actually a good faith effort on my part: you keep assuming that your estimation is correct when majority scholarly opinion favors that you are incorrect, and was actually curious what goes on when you think about that and what you must think of scholarly opinions in general. If it were bad faith I'd have tied it to climate change denial, or included some other insult.

I won't follow it up, but I took it to PMs after the rightful complaints about shitting up the thread.

[Windjammer]

Is that really so different from any other edition though? The GM sets the scene and that determines possibilities for cover and concealment, right? How is this different from that?

The problem is precisely that it isn't different from prior editions. It's in fact a very good instance of the grand case against 5th edition - the edition no one needed and that fails to provide a rationale at any level (macro or micro) for its existence. Here's the situation. In D&D 3.0 the cover rules were "subjective" i.e. DM's call:

Cover provides a bonus to your AC. The more cover you have, the bigger the bonus. In a melee, if you have cover against an opponent, that opponent probably has cover against you, too. With ranged
weapons, however, it’s easy to have better cover than your opponent.
Indeed, that’s what arrow slits in castle walls are all about. The DM may impose other penalties or restrictions to attacks depending on the details of the cover. For example, to strike effectively through a narrow opening, you need to use a long piercing weapon, such as an arrow or a spear. A battleaxe or a pick isn’t going to get through an arrow slit to the person standing behind it. (...)
Degree of Cover: Cover is assessed in subjective measurements of how much protection it offers you. Your DM determines the value of cover. This measure is not a strict mathematical calculation because you gain more value from covering the parts of your body that are more likely to be struck. If the bottom half of your body is covered (as when a human stands behind a 3-foot wall), that only gives you one-quarter cover. If one side or the other of your body is covered, as when you’re partly behind a corner, you get one-half cover.

Observe that the system defers to the authority of the DM in the final instance, but still seeks to provide some background constraints and tables with information. It's certainly not ´make shit up as you go along´.

Then 3.5 came along which codified cover in terms of being able to trace how many lines of sight from the corners of one square to the corners of another square. That was at times cumbersome (esp. with larger creatures) but workable. And it was fairly precise.
Then 4.0 came along, with some pretty badly written cover and stealth rules. It's PHB 2 actually contained the updated stealth rules because, even in the huge amount of errata 4e saw, it was clear to everyone that this was an actual errata in need of getting dispersed among the playerbase. Again, it was half workable, but obviously required use of the grid.

Enter 5th edition. Unlike 3.5 or 4E, the game wants to avoid grid dependency. Badly. But instead of asking, "how can we create a system that still gives you rules for cover while avoiding the grid?" they said, "fuck it, this is too hard."

What's particularly telling here is that the designers didn't even bother to revert to 3.0 - a half decent solution to their problem - because that was apparently "too rules heavy" for the type of "feel" 5th edition is about. The only core "design" constraint to 5th edition is that feel, you see. It doesn't matter if a rules subsystem never gets written up, or is only semifunctional. It only matters that not too many rules are there (and those that are, are worded briefly), to cloud "theatre of the mind". It's the perfect Mearls edition - a game that needs no precise rules to write up because precise rules only ruin "the feel". Observe it's a text friendly edition - we still have hundreds of hundreds of pages with game text, but they are more or less window dressing and there to facilitate "that loving feeling" that D&D obviously lost along the way.

5th edition is therapy edition. And it seems to me to succeed wildly at it, if online reviews in fora and on Amazon are any indication. It literally does not matter what type of game the rules (or lack thereof) facilitate. This is an edition purely there to vindicate and placate highly specific segments of a self-perceivedly disenfranchised playerbase. The only significant discussion on the rules text to emerge all summer was about some bullshit, throw away reference about gender orientation and how you can play "that dwarf" any way you want. That is all you need to ever know about this edition as a text. I was initially highly disappointed that the Den failed to give a much more thorough walk through across the 5e rules books (even the MM thread is mostly impressionistic, nothing like the Angry Drunken Reviews of old), but now I understand - there is literally nothing there for such critical energies to latch onto.

An invisible creature can't be seen, so it can always try to hide.

Wait, what? If you already can't be seen, what benefit do you get from hiding?

I suppose we're meant to picture a smelly noise creature trying to disguise its presence.

[Username17]

An invisible creature can't be seen, so it can always try to hide.

Wait, what? If you already can't be seen, what benefit do you get from hiding?

There is apparently a difference between being "seen," being "discovered," and being "known about." I don't know what any of those states do, and I do not know how you are intended to know how you go from one to the other. Also, these seem to be states that the person who wishes to escape notice has, rather than states which exist with respect to an observer and I don't know how that is supposed to work.

These are not hiding rules. These are someone discussing in natural English what the hiding rules are supposed to accomplish.

-Username17

[mean_liar]

I think the only way to make sense of that is "you can't hide from a creature that can see you" means you can't hide from a creature that's beaten you with their Perception check. The Passive Perception section at least is explicit in that if you beat their Passive Perception (and they're not actively searching for you) then they don't notice you. It still leaves the implication out there that if they see you they see you, but I don't see much triggering "they see you" other than a successful Perception check (which is mirrored in the Wisdom section). Even then that basically sounds like Stealth works all the time against any opponent that can't beat your Stealth check with Perception.

That's really poorly written. Just writing in the above, "Stealth works all the time against any opponent that can't beat your Stealth check with Perception unless the GM believes that there is no way to hide from the observer, such as a guard looking forward down a well-lit hallway" seems more clear. Or at least explicitly give Advantage to the observer in cases between the well-lit hallway and creeping through underbrush, such as in a case where a guard could conceivably be distracted but still has an advantageous position, such as guarding a courtyard.

I find the interaction between Passive Perception and being "contested by the Wisdom (Perception) check" to be also sad.

Like, isn't Passive Perception always running? Doesn't that mean that the perceiver gets to take the higher of Passive and Active perception checks? Why is that only implied rather than explicit?

Hiding and sneaking is a big part of most fantasy RPGs: rogues and swindlers and all that. It's odd that they would make a hash of it. Like, this isn't just Mearls cranking out a book, this presumably has proof-readers and playtesting, right?

[mean_liar]

This:

5th edition is therapy edition. And it seems to me to succeed wildly at it, if online reviews in fora and on Amazon are any indication. It literally does not matter what type of game the rules (or lack thereof) facilitate. This is an edition purely there to vindicate and placate highly specific segments of a self-perceivedly disenfranchised playerbase.

My own impression is the same. I feel like their major design goal was making an RPG and not totally fucking it up. It doesn't seem to do much very well; it's the ham-and-cheese sandwich of RPGs, and I imagine that's enough for a lot of people... it's DnD, and it isn't new - it's decidedly NOT new or innovative - and that'll satisfy plenty.

Nostalgia edition I guess?

and this:

These are not hiding rules. These are someone discussing in natural English what the hiding rules are supposed to accomplish.

That was my impression as well.

[ACOS]

If memory serves, I believe that even 2e had more comprehensive stealth rules.
Of course, it was restricted only to rangers and rogues, which was its own dumb; but at least it was there, and even had defined results (that is, you knew what the die result meant).

[RobbyPants]

Thirdly, you can't hide if creatures "can see you" which is tautological and uniquely unhelpful since if hiding is functioning your enemies don't see you, which boils down to "you can't hide if you aren't hidden and you are hidden if you are hidden" which blows my fucking mind.

So, it's basically Invisible Boy from Mystery Men? Awesome.