D&D 5e is deeply flawed, so why not play something better?

Dungeons & Dragons The 5th Edition is known to be two things foremost, depending on who you talk to: really accessible and easy to play, or a total mess that dilutes a lot of the hallmarks of previous editions of D&D. Both things are true. It is also true that other games exist that perform most of the 5th grade goals better than they do.

This is not an article about how you are a bad person for liking the 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons. If you like the 5th, that’s great! This coin will help you find more games that you will also like very much. I’m not mad at you, and I don’t think you’re stupid. I promise. I legitimately like TTRPGs, which is why I open the floodgates to be brutalized for my (correct) takes. And let me just put one thing aside. I don’t hate crunch. In fact, I really like the crunch. I am from this site bizarre roguelike, that’s why I feel qualified to say that I think D&Dthe crunch is boring.

D&D 5th tries to be everything for everyone, and that’s a very difficult thing to be. And by some measures it is successful. 5th, by being approachable, straightforward (ish) and recognizable, has brought tens of thousands of people into this cool hobby and for that I am deeply grateful. If the design goal of 5th was alone getting people into the hobby then it would be a smash hit. However, I would say it is also trying very difficult be an expressive storytelling system, an engaging game of tactics and what people think of when someone says “D&D”. On these fronts, I am less than impressed.

It’s not hard to argue that 5th is trying to be accessible. If you look at previous editions of D&D (I’m looking at you 2nd and 3.5th) you will see a parcel crap. Intricate scrolls, pages of feats and traits, detailed alignment charts, and fairly strict combat rules. Of course, you can fold these things up for your own needs (that’s what makes TTRPGs so cool!), But as it is written there is a lot of material and a lot of numbers. 5th seriously reduces this. Everything becomes simpler and the sprawling number of classes, races and monsters is reduced to a reasonable size.

The 2014 version of 5th was designed to be simpler, and the fact that a bunch of material was cut added to its accessibility. Lots of things have been added through homebrews and later mods, but that basic accessibility hasn’t gone away. Add to that immense brand recognition and 5th is great for getting people to play it.

… But that doesn’t make it great to play. As written, 5e has a fairly binary pass-fail system for most things. That is, if the DC (the roll you need to get something successful) on an action is a 15, there is no writing difference between getting an 11 and a 14. The 5th DM guide includes a short section on how to introduce success at a price (also known as partial successes) into your game, but does not provide DMs with a framework for. do it. Here is an example of how this can become a problem.

During a first session of a 5th campaign, my MD presented a living armor set to an encounter. Animated armor has an AC (number you need to get to hit that damn thing) of 18. For low-level characters, getting a 19 or higher on an attack roll is no easy feat. An attack roll is made up of your ability modifier and your proficiency bonus (which at low level will be +2). If we’re assuming your character isn’t maxed out, there’s a good chance your best attack modifier at level 2 is a +3. So you roll d20 + 5 to try to get past a 19. You have about a one in four chance of doing so.

Animated armor is also not great for attacking. Which meant that, for several turns, we had player characters and animated armor standing still, hitting each other with Wiffle ball bats doing absolutely no damage. Closing the reels felt absolutely terrible. Getting a 17 meant doing nothing, and anything but wasting the round. This went on for a while until the last armor finally fell, without animation, after a dozen excruciating rounds. It wasn’t a fun fight. It lacked both expressiveness and tactical depth, which is often the case with the 5th.

And I don’t think the answer is to blame the DM for introducing animated armor too early, or the players for not coming up with creative solutions to the problem. The game design, which centers combat above all in terms of ability selection and building priorities, encourages this style of play. It is a holdover from the series’ wargaming roots. Players who were new to the game lacked the familiarity with the medium to creatively solve issues, which is the key issue with D&D. It encourages imagination and creativity on paper, but its standard set of rules don’t give players the tools to develop these skills.

Partial Achievements, which allow players to get what they want but with an added consequence, have become a mainstay of the independent space. 5th includes a little note on partial successes at the end of the book, but it doesn’t try to teach DMs how to use it.

To use another system as an example, if you roll a 7-9 in the first edition Powered by the Apocalypse Games, you get partial success. Partial success on a given move provides a list of additional factors that accompany success. Throw partial success when attacking? You deal damage to the enemy, and the enemy deals damage back to you. If you roll a 7-9 on Defy Danger, the GM can choose from a list of other things that happen that always move the story forward. Once they become familiar with the system, they can develop their own consequences. Failure is a fundamental principle in these games, and is written into the rules as such. D&D encourages these practices in writing, but rarely by design.

5th can do almost anything, it’s a relatively easy system to modify, the question is whether it should. More specialized games exist, and they are awesome! They give you actual storytelling frames and then teach you how to use them. Once you have these tools, they apply to all systems. 5th wants to be the game that teaches you these things; the preface of the Player’s Manual says as much:

The first characters and adventures you create will likely be a collection of snapshots. This is true for everyone, from the greatest Dungeon Masters in history to the end. Accept this reality and move on to the second character or adventure, which will be better, and then to the third, which will be even better. Repeat this over time, and soon you will be able to craft anything from a character’s story to an epic fantasy adventure world.

Once you have this skill, it is yours forever. Countless writers, artists and other creators can trace their beginnings within a few pages of D&D notes, a handful of dice and a kitchen table.

And it helps many players develop these skills, which is why some people like the game. But that’s the rule of big numbers. For many people, this is not the case. I’ve watched group after group of people who want to play TTRPGs bounce off D&D because its rules as written don’t encourage them to do the exciting and creative storytelling they actually want to do! Instead, he just gives them several dozen ways to kill a goblin, most of which end up feeling the same anyway.

So now that I’ve denounced 5th I’m going to be shouting a bunch of games that do a great job of doing the things they wanna do really good!

If you like to do math and use those numbers to tell interesting stories, try Lancer! Lancer is a game about giant robots in a massive space war, and the system really leans into the ‘about robots’ aspect of it all. It’s a game about dealing with heat and power, and using tactics to talk about feelings. It could be extremely dense, but that is mitigated by the fact that it also has a super cool virtual tool called Comp / Con it will help you keep track of all the numbers and every piece of equipment in the game. Plus, his artistry is more than phenomenal. Like fuck shit, check this out.

For scoundrel games look no further than Forged in the dark games like Blades in the dark, The scum and the wickedness, and Knowledge Beam. This system puts you in the shoes of a daring nutcase who is very good at what they do, but under the incredible stress of a lifetime of adventure. These games are uniquely improvised and collaborative, allowing a GM to set up a new heist or score in minutes, and focus on character growth through performance and goals instead of combat. They’re built around dealing with your character’s stress and competing goals for your team members, making them incredibly fun to play with dramatic people who like to take big swings.

For people who just like to tell short, funny stories with their friends, there are a ton of one-shot games that I love. Fiasco is a generator of chaotic movies of the Coen brothers. Ribbon reader is great for telling deeply personal stories about growing up on a road trip. Skeletons is a really interesting storytelling game about skeletons guarding a dungeon slowly remembering their past. I could go on one-shot games for a while. Honestly, just go to Itch.io and browse. You will find something cool almost immediately.

I’ll be sorry I said that, but if you’re looking for a no-D&D game recommendation, just ask in the comments and I’ll probably have something for you. I really like this stupid medium, which is why I want people to try new, interesting games!