The designers have said that the decision to front-load 5e came from user feedback. Being "The World's Most Popular Role-Playing Game" means they have a vested interest in catering to the majority.
My group might be rare but while they enjoy their characters they would be fine with a campaign finishing and another starting with new characters. None of them are screaming for level 21 and higher. Mostly because what else is there to do? When you fight Tiamat or Demogorgon or Tarrasque once you can't keep handing them other legendary monsters to fight because at some point it becomes like why are all of these absurdly powerful creatures popping up and at level 25 and higher even these monsters start becoming easier and easier. So they are happy to get higher than 15 and then if the campaign finishes then great lets start a new one. The real issue story-wise for me at least is if a monster that is powerful enough to go toe to toe with level 20+ characters are just lurking out there why aren't they trying to take over the world or at least nations? And if its creatures like Tiamat or Demogorgon why are groups just now trying to get them to rise one after another? It gets tedious to keep coming up with compelling reasons for these overly powerful monsters to keep appearing to fight an extremely powerful party.
Your post reminded me of my old high school group. I ran them through the original Temple of Elemental Evil, Against the Giants, and Queen of the Demon Web Pits. Totally epic. After that they were really high level characters. Near Level 16, if I remember correctly. They wanted to continue running their characters, and when they capped out, they still wanted to run their characters. So, I devised a Level System that introduced them to Demigod Levels. By demigod, I mean Hercules. Legends. Advancement was no now longer dependent upon racking up kill scores in the form of experience points, but through subtler means. They had to find commoners willing to follow them. They had to design a few spells specific to their worship. They had to negotiate treaties. They had to build a temple. All sorts of complications presented themselves. Monsters were the least of their worries. And as they gained experience, their followers gained power. This wasn't a SimCity-like style of roleplaying. The characters were affecting the world. Sometimes a lesser god would take note and offer advice for a price. Sometimes an evil deity wanted a character destroyed, and so that became a challenge.
D&D is about the narrative. Not a monster compendium. But I understand your point. The ideas need to be fresh, or at least interesting enough to motivate the players.
I really like that idea and hopefully your players did too. The thing is though I don't think that a narrative campaign that was based less on monsters, traps and exploration and more on role play heavy aspects of interpersonal, political and societal conflict is going to appeal to the masses. Especially if up to level 16 you were running dungeons and fighting monsters. It would take certain groups to be willing to play that and I doubt the bulk of players running/playing the game today would want that campaign, especially one that took a very violent turn from more classic RPG aspects to a diplomacy campaign. I have a group now that might be willing to run a session or two that was pretty much all RP if the situation and narrative called for it but the bulk of players are a mix or even more combat heavy. While I absolutely agree with you that narrative is the driving force (or at least should be) to a campaign, and my players will tell you after a year of my campaign there is a metric ton of lore and narrative guiding their actions, there will always need to be the balance at the table of RP, combat, exploration, and skill checks. So I think in part that is one of the reasons why WotC is not doing a 20+ level setting. The players would either be dealing with and/or fighting with gods constantly after ascending to nearly godhood their selves and/or the level of exploration would drop because what tomb or dungeon would stand a chance against a group that is so crazy powerful?
The designers have said that the decision to front-load 5e came from user feedback. Being "The World's Most Popular Role-Playing Game" means they have a vested interest in catering to the majority.
It is very true that a lot of campaigns fall apart by or before level 10 so putting some of the more unique aspects of the classes by 10 is a good way to do it.
To conclude, endless escalation TO ME seems unnecessary and quite potentially counterproductive and silly after a certain point (I like to call it the Dragon Ball syndrome), but I understand there might be others that like that kind of thing.
This is exactly how I feel about it. If you move the goal posts once, you'll be asked to move them again. The game isn't built for that; not even deities get to cast spells higher than 9th level or have ability scores higher than 30.
To conclude, endless escalation TO ME seems unnecessary and quite potentially counterproductive and silly after a certain point (I like to call it the Dragon Ball syndrome), but I understand there might be others that like that kind of thing.
This is exactly how I feel about it. If you move the goal posts once, you'll be asked to move them again. The game isn't built for that; not even deities get to cast spells higher than 9th level or have ability scores higher than 30.
All true. My friends and I were talking about The New Legend of Monkey recently and it got us thinking about a D&D style of play. Someone said: Oh, we can do that in Exalted, and there went that.
To conclude, endless escalation TO ME seems unnecessary and quite potentially counterproductive and silly after a certain point (I like to call it the Dragon Ball syndrome), but I understand there might be others that like that kind of thing.
This is exactly how I feel about it. If you move the goal posts once, you'll be asked to move them again. The game isn't built for that; not even deities get to cast spells higher than 9th level or have ability scores higher than 30.
Unfortunately, I'm in the DM camp that never lacks for stories. As soon as I write down an idea, say, a dwarf forge domain cleric of Moradin inherited a lesser known mining hall the size of a parlor compared to Mithril Hall, my mind is racing with ideas. My problem as a DM has never been how to design, rather what to cut out or showcase. But you'r right, most adventures in 5E tend to run dry by Level 10. I think that's intentional, honoring the spirit of an internal vision statement. Give the DMs and characters their fill to Level 10 and then let them do the rest. There is a demand for it. At least with Adventurers League.
And, if I'm reading between the lines with anywhere near a Wisdom 10 I'd say that MToF will touch on it with binoculars. At most.
Let me clarify my last comment about Adventurers League: There is a demand for Tier 3 and Tier 4 adventures. A huge demand. I think mechanically the concern is scale. When a Table of 7 sit down to play for AL the DM has to recalculate the APL to the CR. Going from 5 characters to 6 characters isn't all that difficult. It';s challenging but not difficult. Going from 6 characters to 7 characters is a huge mechanical calculation. I've heard and seen entire tables get demolished. So that might be of concern.
Someone said it earlier: the Team at D&D made 5E front-heavy on purpose so the fun is at lower levels. Characters don't have to reach Tier 4 play to be satisfied. And I agree. This past week at my Table the adventuring party's APL was a strong Level 3 balanced. The creature strategies were thought out beforehand but the players managed to do just fine even thought the threat of death was present throughout the entire combat scene.
I won't worry about the next edition. 5e got great reviews and has been around for less time then the less-loved 4e, so it's not going anywhere for a while. In terms of upcoming books, a boy can still dream of a dark sun sourcebook...
I very much agree with you, but I must tell you: the absence of symmetry in the hilt of the sword in your signature is driving me nuts XD (there's a piece missing at the bottom, the top one has two "<" and one ">", the bottom one only has the two "<" :P)
Thanks for getting me to notice that. Seriously though, dark sun would be awesome.
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For god's sake. Find a hobby or something. Sheesh. Please stop using this font.
5e has plenty of time left, and in fact it would be nice if it wound being the longest lived edition of DND we've ever had. I'd be interested to see what a late 5e looks like, what systems they offer as all these new players mature and what their tastes end up looking like when they've been playing for a while.
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The designers have said that the decision to front-load 5e came from user feedback. Being "The World's Most Popular Role-Playing Game" means they have a vested interest in catering to the majority.
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Let me clarify my last comment about Adventurers League: There is a demand for Tier 3 and Tier 4 adventures. A huge demand. I think mechanically the concern is scale. When a Table of 7 sit down to play for AL the DM has to recalculate the APL to the CR. Going from 5 characters to 6 characters isn't all that difficult. It';s challenging but not difficult. Going from 6 characters to 7 characters is a huge mechanical calculation. I've heard and seen entire tables get demolished. So that might be of concern.
Someone said it earlier: the Team at D&D made 5E front-heavy on purpose so the fun is at lower levels. Characters don't have to reach Tier 4 play to be satisfied. And I agree. This past week at my Table the adventuring party's APL was a strong Level 3 balanced. The creature strategies were thought out beforehand but the players managed to do just fine even thought the threat of death was present throughout the entire combat scene.
Dark Sun would be awesome.
5e has plenty of time left, and in fact it would be nice if it wound being the longest lived edition of DND we've ever had. I'd be interested to see what a late 5e looks like, what systems they offer as all these new players mature and what their tastes end up looking like when they've been playing for a while.