Thread by @djrhutton

This is one of the main reasons I stopped GMing #dnd 5e and switched to #pathfinder2e, one of my major beefs with the culture around the game, and why I'm so vocal in my criticism of it:

5e is a very difficult game to GM and many players don't understand why. LONG 🧵

If you want to run the game with any mechanical integrity, you spend half the time compensating for rules that just aren't there, and the other half wrestling with the rules that ARE because they're poorly tuned, such as CR and class balance.

The common advice is to just fudge the numbers without players noticing, but having since played games where I DON'T have to fudge them to make an encounter work the way I intend, this feels like apologia for bad design.

I get that to fudge or not to fudge is one of the endless GM debates, but there's a difference between fudging rolls at critical moments and having to regularly adjust the stats and HP of a creature because the maths is esoteric. I'm basically redesigning encounters as I run them

There's no consistency. And that's just with the numbers. Once you get into the 'rulings not rules' part of the issue, that's what you feel the real weight of your responsibility and how much is riding on you to give the illusion of the game being 'rules lite'.

The example I always use is economy. There's no support for how to value or judge items outside of basic adventuring gear, transport vehicles, and the odd hard ruling like wizards learning spells. XGtE has piss-poor, slapdash rules for magic item economy, and that's it.

When I once brought this up in a Reddit discussion, someone suggested you don't need rules because your players can just make up things to spend money on. When I asked for specific examples, they said the following three things:

1. Paying for airship transport
2. Arming the kingdom's military
3. Building an orphanage

So yes. The three things they suggested were transport tickets, and FUCKING CITY AND ARMY BUILDING RULES.

This would be fine if this was a rules lite game and you just handwaved it narratively that your players are so rich, money is no object. But no, this person suggested not only that you make up things to spend on, but suggested what are usually entire subsystems unto themselves.

And this is what the ultimate issue is: 5e is a game that PRETENDS to be a narrative-focused, rules lite game, but it isn't. It's still as crunchy as it ever was, it's just the front end is pretending it isn't and just putting all the responsibility onto the GM to manage it.

This in turn brings out the last big line: 'just homebrew it or use 3rd party.' So now, if I want to have any semblance of a mechanical system, it's on me as the GM to make one myself, or browse through reams of unofficial content to vet what I want.

This isn't me saying homebrew or 3rd party is bad. It's what needs to be compensated for that's the issue. I need to homebrew my own monsters because the guidelines for creating encounters doesn't work. Ignoring they have been revamped TWICE since the original DMG guidelines.

I once saw someone describe 5e as the Bethesda open-world of d20 systems, and it's so on point. It's got the bare bones of a decent idea, but for anything with substantial depth, WotC essentially expect you to do it yourself, or outsource to 3rd party content creators.

It's lazy and exploitative, especially considering WotC owns many of the channels through which 3rd party content is distributed.

It also expects I have the time to trudge through reams of content to find the diamond in the rough of the many, MANY subpar 3pps.

This is before getting into a breed of 5e DM I call Smug Homebrew Bros, but that would be another thread unto itself. All I will say, is people who excuse 5e's issues with 'it's good for homebrew' are enabling that laziness and exploitativeness on WotC's part to sate their egos.

In the end, 5e is NOT a mechanically simple game. It's a game that has all the hallmarks of other, overtly crunchier d20 systems, but none of the support for the back end, like a building without supports or a frame.

It's a game that offloads the mechanical understanding to the DM. And the thing is, I'd be happy enough to let bygones be bygones and not complain so loudly about it...if the general attitude from so much of that dominant zeitgeist wasn't 'just play 5e and fix it yourself.'

People just want GMs to run nothing but 5e because the front-end is easy, and have just become so used to DMs compensating for them wanting to have the illusion of a rules light game while they carry the load. All while WotC offers no support to DMs.

Seriously, DM burnout is a major complaint I see regularly in 5e spaces, but when you look at most official supplements and realise they've become primarily player-focused, with little for DMs apart from lore and fluff, it becomes clear where WotC's marketing focus is.

Well I'm not okay with that. If you want me to run a game, I'm going to run a game that supports me as a GM, not compensate to have me judge a Calvinball match for people who don't understand - if not even respect - the effort I'm putting in.

I want the game to function as it should out of the box. If I buy an Ikea flat-pack, I don't want to be told 'well it CAN do what you want, you just have to learn DIY and adjust it to do that.'

IT'S A CHAIR, JIM. I JUST WANT TO SIT ON IT.

Just dovetailing this with some addendums; first, I realised I hashtaged PF2e without actually talking much about it. Which I guess wasn't the point since this is more a critique of 5e, and as I went on in the thread I decided I didn't want to make it a raw system comparison.

The reason I brought it up thought is 2e is a much, MUCH more supportive system on the back end for GMs. The maths works heaps better, there's rules for most mechanics, and support for things that actually work like - y'know - magic item prices.

But the takeaway from this shouldn't be 'just play PF2e.' The reality is, a big part of 5e's success has been drawing on people who are less inclined towards crunch. So if you want to do that, the solution isn't to play DnD and have your DM arbitrate obtuse crunch.

The solution is to consider less crunchy games. There are plenty of games that are EASIER to pick up and play than 5e, while focusing on the things people like about it. And they're much easier on the DM because they don't require essentially brewing their own system to make work

But my main takeaway is this: if you DO like the very popular fantasy d20 fare, and you want those crunchy, game-y systems like grid-based tactical combat, character builds, item economy, etc. Then DON'T force your DM to play a game that's going to burn them out.

5e is a game that attracts many players, but for DMs, the main two kinds who work best with it - in my experience anyway - are those who play fast and loose with the rules and don't care much for nuance and consistency, and those who treat it as a fixer-upper to make their own.

That's fine if that works for you and your DM legitimately has fun with it. But realise a lot of people who want to run games are forced into running 5e against their will by tyranny of majority. And all that will do is burn them out.

Either WotC needs to be more mechanically supportive for DMs instead of making the obvious bulk of their content for PCs and setting fluff only, or the playerbase needs to expand their tastes so they have more GMs willing to run games for them.

And if the monoculture is going to press-gang GMs into running a game that burns them out from carrying the game so the players can have fun while putting in minimal effort themselves, then don't act surprised when you struggle to find any willing to run games for you.