Quote from: jhkim on May 29, 2024, 02:21:25 PMI'm also pretty good at coming up with character backgrounds on the fly, but then, I also am very quick at making characters mechanically. I suspect we're both regularly GMs.

In my experience, though, a lot of players need more time to make choices. It's not about typing speed or that they have no imagination, but they need a lot of time to decide on what they want.

Even with pregenerated characters, deciding on who plays what character can take time. In the Savage Worlds game I ran at KublaCon this past weekend, I had 12 pregenerated characters for 6 players, and it took more than fifteen minutes for the players to go over who all the characters were and which one they wanted.

When it is wide-open choices like backstory, then some people can take a longer time. And especially if this is a character they'll be playing for a long campaign, I can understand that. It rarely happens now, but I can remember hours of going through books and considering options for a new campaign character - back when we did character creation out-of-session.

Several years ago, some family friends wanted to try their hand at D&D, and after I ran them through several sessions of B4 with Labyrinth Lord, one wanted to try DMing 5e. Knowing my friend, I got ready for the long haul because even if he sucked, he would work at it until he got good (long story short, he was fine if a bit railroady).

After a while of thinking about a concept and putzing around with the online character builder, I came up with the idea of trying to build (keyword here) a monk who was a follower of Wee Jas and chose an off-the-wall feat to give him some versatility. Eventually I made two different and complete characters. The first was a Monk with the Hermetic Order background and Magic Initiate feat. He had Fire Bolt, Minor Illusion, and Witch Bolt as his spells, and I thought I would be able to use the Minor Illusion to great effect. I was happy with this but wanted to see what else I could do, so I made another character.

This time I made a Monk with the Acolyte background and Magic Initiate feat. He had Sacred Flame, Thaumaturgy, and Inflict Wounds as his spells. After reading the description for Thaumaturgy I KNEW I could use this to very great effect.

Now both characters were pretty competent (at least interesting to me) in melee but also had some magical ju-ju that I could use to roll over this new DM. Both also had at least one ranged attack. But that was the problem that I had. Both characters matched my concept but did it in very different ways.

The Magic-User base would be vicious with his ranged attacks (Firebolt, cantrip, 1d10 fire damage; and Witchbolt, 1st-level, 1d12 lightning damage per round for up to a minute), but I was worried about how the new DM would deal with all the illusions I'd be dropping.

The Divine base would be just as vicious with a generally auto-kill melee attack (Inflict Wounds, 1st-level, 3d10 necrotic damage) and a decent ranged attack (Sacred Flame, cantrip, 1d8 radiant damage), but I figured the Thaumaturgy cantrip would actually do stuff which I could argue couldn't be disbelieved or anything.

So not counting the hours it took me pouring over the PH looking at all the options and spells I could take, I sat for days--literally days--trying to figure out which character I wanted to play. Even in my days of 3e, I never spent that much time building a concept. But here I had so many options that seemed viable that I was paralyzed. I eventually went with the Divine base because of the reality of the Thaumaturgy spell.

So at session 1, Bruce Leeroy Jenkins was a Follower of Wee Jas who during his arcane studies learned how to harness the power of the Negative Material Plane (Inflict Wounds), the Positive Material Plane (Sacred Flame), and bend the fabric of reality to his will (Thaumaturgy). During his temple training, he learned how to harness his inner Ki strength to become one of the most devastating whirlwinds in the area. He spent his time learning how to harness the power of the planes to augment his inner powers. He also spent his down time composing Haiku and drawing to create magnificent Haiga.

By the time my wife and I bowed out--Covid had hit and playing on Zoom was awful--Leeroy had attained 5th-level and was just fucking vicious. He always had an answer and legit combat option. He never outshined anyone in damage, but he controlled the battlefield. Nothing like bringing down some Radiance, charging in and stunning, and then punching the big bad for Necrotic damage. And then then a choice of 3 attacks or an attack and Disengage/Dash/Push/non-action?! There was no answer for Bruce Leeroy in combat.

But I wasn't a jerk player with this character. The campaign was plenty challenging mentally for the we the players, but combat was exciting for me. Just took hours into days to create a character that I could have fun and excel with.

It doesn't matter to me how much time someone wants to take futzing with a character as long as they don't hold up the start of the game or waste other people's time with it.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on May 28, 2024, 08:47:22 AMAnd if I correctly recall the discussion at 5E's launch, this was intended to be common for more experienced players--Levels 1 and 2 were meant as 'training levels' for players new to the system, and to go by very quickly.

Yeah. 5e basically "starts" at 3rd level. It's one of 5e's design issues. The game doesn't do well for high level play(not a problem limited to 5e) and then they killed the starter levels. So you have this very narrow band of the game, levels 3-7 or so where the game actually functions well.

Quote from: Dracones on May 30, 2024, 09:42:50 AM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on May 28, 2024, 08:47:22 AMAnd if I correctly recall the discussion at 5E's launch, this was intended to be common for more experienced players--Levels 1 and 2 were meant as 'training levels' for players new to the system, and to go by very quickly.

Yeah. 5e basically "starts" at 3rd level. It's one of 5e's design issues. The game doesn't do well for high level play(not a problem limited to 5e) and then they killed the starter levels. So you have this very narrow band of the game, levels 3-7 or so where the game actually functions well.

That was close to my experience with 5e too. We blazed through levels 1-2 with barely a pause. I then enjoyed running the game from levels 3-9, but by 10-11 it was nowhere near as much fun, and we stopped just after hitting level 12.

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 30, 2024, 03:05:44 PM

Quote from: Dracones on May 30, 2024, 09:42:50 AM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on May 28, 2024, 08:47:22 AMAnd if I correctly recall the discussion at 5E's launch, this was intended to be common for more experienced players--Levels 1 and 2 were meant as 'training levels' for players new to the system, and to go by very quickly.

Yeah. 5e basically "starts" at 3rd level. It's one of 5e's design issues. The game doesn't do well for high level play(not a problem limited to 5e) and then they killed the starter levels. So you have this very narrow band of the game, levels 3-7 or so where the game actually functions well.

That was close to my experience with 5e too. We blazed through levels 1-2 with barely a pause. I then enjoyed running the game from levels 3-9, but by 10-11 it was nowhere near as much fun, and we stopped just after hitting level 12.

That was also my experience. I recently ended my 5E campaign at level 9.

On the other hand, it was similar for me with AD&D decades ago. Characters felt unwieldy to me at the upper levels. There were less special abilities in the AD&D rules, but by then each character would have a dozen or more magic items - and spellcasters were juggling dozens of spells. One of the things I liked about 5E was toning down the extent of magic items.

Quote from: jhkim on May 30, 2024, 04:03:17 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 30, 2024, 03:05:44 PM

Quote from: Dracones on May 30, 2024, 09:42:50 AM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on May 28, 2024, 08:47:22 AMAnd if I correctly recall the discussion at 5E's launch, this was intended to be common for more experienced players--Levels 1 and 2 were meant as 'training levels' for players new to the system, and to go by very quickly.

Yeah. 5e basically "starts" at 3rd level. It's one of 5e's design issues. The game doesn't do well for high level play(not a problem limited to 5e) and then they killed the starter levels. So you have this very narrow band of the game, levels 3-7 or so where the game actually functions well.

That was close to my experience with 5e too. We blazed through levels 1-2 with barely a pause. I then enjoyed running the game from levels 3-9, but by 10-11 it was nowhere near as much fun, and we stopped just after hitting level 12.

That was also my experience. I recently ended my 5E campaign at level 9.

On the other hand, it was similar for me with AD&D decades ago. Characters felt unwieldy to me at the upper levels. There were less special abilities in the AD&D rules, but by then each character would have a dozen or more magic items - and spellcasters were juggling dozens of spells. One of the things I liked about 5E was toning down the extent of magic items.

Funny, I've got 3+ years playing AD&D2e disregarding stuff like perpetual light/darkness stones (which we can easily craft) we have about 3 magical items each.

Which makes me think your experience with it is more of a GM problem than a game problem. Meaning the GM was handing out way too much magic items to the players. Something a GM can also do in 5e.

As for the spells, not having played 5e but from what I've seen casters will have about the same number of spells to "juggle".

But in AD&D2e there's no power creep by way of feats and other shit that 5e has.

Don't get me wrong I dislike the magic system of D&D in general, it makes no sense to me that you have to re-memorize a spell, it should work more like Harry Potter, once you know the spell you know it and can spam it, which creates a different problem for "balance" reasons. There have been different attempts at solving this, magic points, random roll to se if you cast successfully, etc.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 30, 2024, 04:40:29 PM

Quote from: jhkim on May 30, 2024, 04:03:17 PMThat was also my experience. I recently ended my 5E campaign at level 9.

On the other hand, it was similar for me with AD&D decades ago. Characters felt unwieldy to me at the upper levels. There were less special abilities in the AD&D rules, but by then each character would have a dozen or more magic items - and spellcasters were juggling dozens of spells. One of the things I liked about 5E was toning down the extent of magic items.

Funny, I've got 3+ years playing AD&D2e disregarding stuff like perpetual light/darkness stones (which we can easily craft) we have about 3 magical items each.

Which makes me think your experience with it is more of a GM problem than a game problem. Meaning the GM was handing out way too much magic items to the players. Something a GM can also do in 5e.

It's possible in 5E, which doesn't specify treasure rewards, but in AD&D1, the treasure that you give to players is part of the rules. Each monster has a treasure type with an associated chance of magic items. That, and the official AD&D modules have a similar frequency of magic items to the treasure rules.

Obviously, the DM could ignore the rules and give out fewer magic items, but they could change other rules, too.

Played by the book AD&D 1E requires saving throws for magic items in all kinds of scenarios.  There's a lot of magic going in, but there's a lot going out, too.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on May 30, 2024, 05:31:23 PMPlayed by the book AD&D 1E requires saving throws for magic items in all kinds of scenarios.  There's a lot of magic going in, but there's a lot going out, too.

jhkim never actually played AD&D BtB. Not that hardly any of us did, but he assuredly did not. Claiming it's "in the rules" for tons of magic items then ignoring other parts of the rules that mitigate this potential problem is typical for the anti-AD&D arguments. But as already stated, this is mostly a DM problem anyway. Gygax has a whole section in the DMG that directly addresses this issue, which I am sure a lot of young players (like myself) glossed over and then had the PCs flying around in X-wing fighters. Such is life.

Quote from: Brad on May 30, 2024, 05:36:37 PMjhkim never actually played AD&D BtB. Not that hardly any of us did, but he assuredly did not. Claiming it's "in the rules" for tons of magic items then ignoring other parts of the rules that mitigate this potential problem is typical for the anti-AD&D arguments. But as already stated, this is mostly a DM problem anyway. Gygax has a whole section in the DMG that directly addresses this issue, which I am sure a lot of young players (like myself) glossed over and then had the PCs flying around in X-wing fighters. Such is life.

I'm not claiming that I played AD&D entirely by the book. Like almost everyone else, I ignored weapon-vs-armor and the grappling rules and psionics and plenty of other stuff.

But yes, I did pay attention to treasure types and the intended frequency of magic items. I remember doing some statistics on the different treasure types back in middle school.

The point being that the frequency of magic items isn't a pure DM issue unrelated to the rules.

Quote from: Brad on May 30, 2024, 05:36:37 PMjhkim never actually played AD&D BtB. Not that hardly any of us did, but he assuredly did not. Claiming it's "in the rules" for tons of magic items then ignoring other parts of the rules that mitigate this potential problem is typical for the anti-AD&D arguments. But as already stated, this is mostly a DM problem anyway. Gygax has a whole section in the DMG that directly addresses this issue, which I am sure a lot of young players (like myself) glossed over and then had the PCs flying around in X-wing fighters. Such is life.

I think part of the problem was that (at least in my experience) Monty Haul games weren't really a thing most times back in the day. I'm not saying magic items were necessarily hard to come by, but you usually didn't have a chest full of them until 11th or 12th lvl (or higher). Having magic items make saving throws vs Dragon's Breath (for example) would be useful in Monty Haul games where 'you win some, you lose some'. On the other hand, if you're 6th lvl and all you have is a Potion and a Scroll you've been holding for 2-3 levels, that seems slightly unfair.

5E suffers from the exact same problem as the 'non-Monty Haul' campaign with the inane 'Attunement' mechanic and making treasure nigh impossible to come by (thus defeating the very reason someone would become an Adventurer). Having 'super powers' in D&D, ala 5th Edition, isn't a fix. It's a lateral step into something that shouldn't exist whereby you're mixing genres, making it feel like an MMORPG instead of a traditional fantasy tabletop game. Or a Superheroes RPG.

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on May 30, 2024, 11:26:17 PM5E suffers from the exact same problem as the 'non-Monty Haul' campaign with the inane 'Attunement' mechanic and making treasure nigh impossible to come by (thus defeating the very reason someone would become an Adventurer). Having 'super powers' in D&D, ala 5th Edition, isn't a fix. It's a lateral step into something that shouldn't exist whereby you're mixing genres, making it feel like an MMORPG instead of a traditional fantasy tabletop game. Or a Superheroes RPG.

I don't think 5e's design ever seriously considered the use of it for a "Hack the orcs, loot the tomb, and take the land" style of campaign. (Honestly, that phrasing would make a great name for a game!)

As far back as at least 3rd edition (I would say 2nd), D&D has been marketing itself more on the idea of the LOTR/Dragonlance/Baldur's Gate/R.A. Salvatore model of a band of accidental heroes coming together to save the day from the forces of evil. Going from personal experience, that was already the more common style by at least the late 90s/early 00s.

If that's what you expect your players to want to use the system for, then it makes a measure of sense to ditch the treasure tables and XP-for-gold. As far as the powers in 5e go, a lot of digital ink has been spilled on it, but I've never quite liked the idea of calling it a "superhero" game. That tends to imply that it takes influence from American cape comics, which is the one thing I don't really see evidence of in the system. The more likely influences are (definitely) videogames, and (I suspect) Shonen anime.

Quote from: jhkim on May 30, 2024, 06:01:45 PMI'm not claiming that I played AD&D entirely by the book. Like almost everyone else, I ignored weapon-vs-armor and the grappling rules and psionics and plenty of other stuff.

But yes, I did pay attention to treasure types and the intended frequency of magic items. I remember doing some statistics on the different treasure types back in middle school.

The point being that the frequency of magic items isn't a pure DM issue unrelated to the rules.

People are talking about the rules that are actually relevant to the number of magic items a PC is expected to have at a given level.  None of the rules you mention there is at all relevant to the actual topic.

You paid attention to the rules that would tend to add items.  Apparently, you did not pay attention to the rules that would tend to remove them like item saving throws.  Choosing to pay attention to one set of rules while ignoring the other is entirely a DM issue. 

You really are just incapable of discussing the actual issue at hand in good faith.