No, I don't care that 'it's more book keeping'; when 5e has kineticists, then we can talk.
this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
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See, I think I have a lot of that in my games, but it's an undocumented duty of the DM. D&D can be very stand-and-deliver if you're doing theatre of the mind combat without much scene-setting, but it also becomes very tactical and/or swashbuckling if you describe the area in detail. Or, even better, use visual aids like a battle map. It really all comes down to: the players can't swing from the chandelier if they don't know there's a chandelier.
It finally clicked for me why I love 5e's combat so much (as the only TTRPG I've played - still a newbie!), while other people always criticize it. It's because my DM is awesome and keeps including visual aids, descriptions, and ways to make the combat dynamic such as using the environment either against the players or against the enemies!
The best DMs are a treasure; they can make anything fun.
I think "good" systems (from a DM's perspective anyway) are the ones that make that job take a the minimum amount of effort; If I need a monster, I can make a statblock, but if the system includes a monster manual that has it for me, I can spend that prep time on some other encounter. Likewise, having just enough lore, such that I can grab elements and inspiration, but not so much that I have to exhaustively research it, is a huge benefit.
From a player's perspective, I guess my priorities would be a system that isn't actively frustrating to use, and one that I can have a pretty good understanding of the likelihood of whether any particular choice will succeed or fail. Doesn't have to be perfect knowledge, just so long as I have the chance to make a meaningful decision between my options.
If I'm honest, the literal only reason I still prefer Pathfinder over 5e is because a bunch of my go-to favorite classes don't exist and can't reliably be translated to 5e without a lot of kludging or just outright sawing pieces off and sanding the stumps down. 5e does play rather streamlined, and with a good DM, it goes from good to fantastic; but it's still a matter of 'where are my oracles, kineticists, soulknives, gunslingers, and swashbucklers?'
I just don't like playing base, core, or big four.
I appreciate that kind of stuff when its there. I also really like codified abilities and techniques I can pull off independent of the GM's current narration. I've got a little hedgehog dude in pf2e I'm playing with explicit benefits from doing cool and varied moves in battle. With strong reasons to swap between weapons, taunt, feint, spindash around and generally style on enemies, I find i've always really nice tools to keep combat engaging and to ratchet up the drama and tension from the player's side.