What do you not like about DnD
DragonKing
Member Posts: 1,977
in Off-Topic
So I know that a lot of people on this forums love DnD, whether its the books, table top games, or video games. There is also a lot of hate, towards the books, different Editions, and the video games, so the question that I am here to ask you is; What are some things that you don't like about DnD in general?
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In video game i kinda appreciate, but it's more or less because a nostalgy thing. Maybe also the fact i alway play video game in solo so it's not the same experience at all.
It seems that this is being remedied somewhat by modern developments, which add more depth and complexity to the system. However in the BG series it's still very noticeably present, e.g. with many spells being "save or bust".
Personally I've always been much more happy with systems that take modifiers into account dynamically. Rather than, say, have a 30% chance to get hit for the full amount and a 70% chance to not get hit at all, I favor an approach that simply hits for 30% of the full amount instead.
Currently I am a DM playing with a group of friends, all first-timers. I've noticed there's a couple that find the game somewhat confusing at times. They still enjoy the game very much, but I can see that sometimes they are at momentary loss about what they should do. It likely is because they've never played before, but they usually mistake one die for another or they don't remember what they should do in order to make a certain roll. I think it's a little because of their inexperience, and a little because of the 3.5 rules I'm following. I accepted the rules because I'm most familiar with them, but this experience came to make me understand that it is not so likely other people would have such a deep understanding of the rules I do. I guess that's probably one of the reasons I am a DM and they're players. Or maybe because I'm NG and they're all chaotic, with evil tendencies...
I've read a bit the rules for the 5th edition; I haven't read the manuals through, so I apologize if I misinterpreted them. In my reading, I very much appreciate the all "get rid of the ability checks altogether" thing. I agree that this takes a bit out of the customization of the characters, but it comes with a much needed simplification of the rules. Now, whomever wants to do a search check, knows it's a check based on Wisdom. Simple enough.
Also, there should be more video games based on D&D and the FR in particular. I'M LOOKING AT YOU, @TrentOster !!
I typically play Pathfinder when I want something more mechanically in-depth, but I often find myself quickly bored by each and every rule which explains exactly what you can and cannot do. Very uncool. I've made a compromise and mine many ideas from Pathfinder, but use the current 5E ruleset.
The only thing I dislike about the 2nd edition are the non-human class level restrictions.
A bit silly perhaps to obsess about it in a setting that has fireballs, dragons and time stop I freely admit.
As soon as you find a strength enhancing item or buff up I am totally fine. It just irks me that men and women are equally strong even though they look like real men and women from our world. It doesn't bother me in the slightest among other races. From what I understand the females are stronger among the drow and among the dwarves they actually are more or less equal. I don't know about elves and gnomes but I think I've read that the differance is supposed to be pretty big among orcs too.
Sneaking in general and "hide in plain sight" in particular I also find quite out of place, in the books I've read in the forgotten realms setting the thieves were sorely lacking in "magical" skills.
I've never really seen a good explanation for the turn based system either, at least not for casters. If a spell is very easy to cast with a short casting time, magic missile for example, why can't the mage cast several in one round? And not even drink a potion or use an item in the time that's left of the "round". Needed for "balance" I suppose, but a tad silly nonetheless imho.
Dnd should be controlled by the DM, who is, after all, the story teller. The players shape the story and help to tell it. I believe that rules should be ways to help increase fun; neither player nor DM should be so hyperfocused on rules that the immersion is lost.
I haven't played 5e yet, but from what I understand it is more in keeping with the spirit of pnp games.
I was right at home with the Baldur's Gate round system and 10 segments per round, because of my background experiences with AD&D.
If you peruse through the AD&D spell list I'm linking, you'll see that in general, spells took a number of segments to cast equal to the spell level, so, 1st level spells were very fast at 1 segment, 2nd level spells took 2 segments, etc.
This made Sleep an extremely powerful spell, even back then, because, as long as you remembered to tell the DM you were starting the spell at the beginning of a round, instead of in the middle of a round, the spell would go off before any enemies could attack.
http://pandaria.rpgworlds.info/cant/rules/adnd_spells.htm#Affect Normal Fires
All that said, I think 3.5/Pathfinder and the current 5th iteration are by far my favourite interpretations of Dungeons and Dragons. The rules let you do all the things you oughta be able to do, and I love how ornate and complicated 3.5 can be and how streamlined 5e is, they both serve up things I like in different ways that I like. 4e was streamlined, but wasn't doing streamlined right. Pre-3rd edition they were ornate and complicated, but weren't doing ornate and complicated right. So I always find something great returning to 3.5 and I'm really impressed with the new edition. 2nd ed has a lot of nostalgia for me, being the D&D I played first (and the D&D that dedicated the appropriate number of books to the Planescape setting, which makes the most fun to play Planescape in still), so I do love it, but it's very much a love you might have for a favourite childhood movie that's actually kind of atrocious and no one who sees it as an adult thinks it's any good (mechanically speaking, the settings and stories of that era were fantastic, especially the FR novels coming out while 2nd ed was at its height).
I also have always found D&D's morality system very heavy handed and hamfisted, so I loved Eberron trying its best to let you explore different kinds of stories, with evil clerics of good gods and vice versa being possible (and of course the classic "oh hey the good-aligned monarch of Aundair is a warmonger and the evil tyrant in charge of Karrnath wants and works to maintain peace" dichotomy that always blew the minds of D&D players I introduced to the setting used to the more cut and dry use of alignments as simplistic moral and ethical compasses), but honestly I usually ignored alignment in my games even before Eberron, aside from Paladins who are supposed to be penalized for RPing outside the alignment lines as part of the flavour of their class, and I rarely played games with people who wanted to play Paladins anyway (not never, but I can count 'em on one hand, one finger if I do segment counting instead of finger counting).
There's nothing like being in a portion of a campaign where the players don't have time in between sessions to cast spells, do research etc, maybe you had to travel through dangerous wilderness, raid a stronghold and then have to immediately travel to some Liches tomb and retrieve some item or prevent some dark ritual, because if you don't go RIGHT NOW the grand city of Enpeycees will surely be lost.
So along the way you gather a half of dozen magical longswords, six magic rings, four sets of magical armor, numerous cloaks, amulets and not only do you got to lug all this stuff around in your portable hole, but you know that you will have to throw down with a Liche/Demon/Dragon with tentacles and you're absolutely sure some of that gear you have just might even the odds a bit, but unless the sword has 'Liche/Demon/Dragon with tentacles Slayer' written across it in common, you just can't be sure.
Now if the aforementioned logistical roadblock with utilizing the loot properly so that this section of the campaign can have a satisfactory ending and not just be a TPK is not enough of a problem and suppose that the party does manage to somehow defeat the Liche/Demon/Dragon with tentacles boss at the end of the dungeon and now they travel back to the grand city of Enpeycees and decide their characters will Identify and split up all the magic items they have accrued in the last four months of gaming.
"Ok, the magical Brass Ring, what does it do?"~Player of Amazo the wizard
"Brass Ring?"~befuddled DM begins thumbing through stacks of crumpled papers
"Yeah, it's on my list, I wrote it down right after the emerald amulet." ~Player of Chirpy the Bard
"Emerald Amulet?"` DM sets down stack of handwritten notes and reaches for the bookshelf.
"Yeah that page of notes is from August, I remember Amber made chili and spilled some on your notes." ~The player of Cutter the fighter
"Oh yeah, I think that was..." ~DM puts down book and goes back to laptop.
20 minutes later in realtime.
"Nope, that wasn't it..." ~ Frazzled DM.
"OK, lets just call it a Ring of Protection +2" ~Player of Amazo the wizard.
"Ring of Protection +2 it is." ~deflated DM.
"Alright, how about the magical silver ring?" ~Player of Chirpy the bard.
Yeah, I've always hated the Identify spell in D&D!
Personally I kind of wish D&D's magic system was closer to WoD's Mage but without the lesson about power woven into it, but then you'd have to balance all the other classes to that kind of way of thinking about class abilities, which seems like it'd be pretty hard to do especially between the clearly supernatural and the clearly mundane (i.e. between wizards and clerics on the one hand and fighters and rogues on the other). It's always seemed more mystical and occult and magical to me to have someone trying to bend reality to their whims in ways unique to the individual caster rather than recite a formula that outputs the same results no matter who you are (i.e. "oh look, a spellbook! oh wow, they have Magic Missile too! wowee formulaic sameness draining magic of any mystery sure is neato!") but again, it's just so embedded in what D&D is at this point that I'm more or less saying I prefer other pen and paper systems to D&D rather than saying things I'd want these things changed about D&D...ultimately when I play a game of D&D, I know what to expect and what the mechanics' existence in the setting mean with regard to the setting and just run with it lol
My least favorite thing about roleplaying in general is players and GMs who don't care if everyone else is having fun. Especially GMs.