5E is Too Soft

The short rests, the healing it all on a long rest, the 5.5E happy art, the utter lack of death, the prevalence of overpowered characters, the embracing of a non-violent cartoon for kids, and the general sense of frivolity and lightheartedness of 5E, these days... it's like the game has lost its edge.

What is this game anymore?

5E has become too soft for its own good. Even the 2014 books look like hardcore OSR games in comparison, and even those already had the pliancy of foam rubber. 

I love the game but get bored with every version I play. I fall into this "safe mode" when I play, knowing exactly what to do next. Even the exploration is overly safe, with the resting mechanics restoring my depleted resources, the only ones I use. I am beginning to miss 4E, with at-will, encounter, and daily powers taking the constant resting out of resource recovery.

Still, I love 5E enough to buy into the Kobold Press version and support the indie creators. But I know how easy it can be and how overpowered the character becomes. And the things coming down the road for the game make it worse.

People play Shadowdark and the OSR for a reason.

Stopping to rest every encounter robs the game of urgency, threat, and momentum. I miss pulp games like Savage Worlds, where you go all-out on an adventure without stopping to rest, like some action movie thrill ride that does not stop. The situation is dire; you keep pushing, your resources are depleted, and you keep going no matter what.

By contrast, if you took a group of 5E characters to a theme park, it feels like they would stop at every bench for a break. Are we really resting again? Why can't the casters spend a hit die for spell recovery of resources instead of stopping the adventure again?

Why, in these games, is "when do we get to rest," the number one source of tension?

Resting and recovery mechanics in 5E are garbage-tier rules. I don't care if they speed up play and eliminate going back to town every encounter. For a game demanding immersion, action-oriented play, and the looming, constant threat, they overemphasize "rest" and pausing constantly.

The first thing I do when playing 5E is turn up the difficulty. I grab a rules mod and use that to start making the game more like...

An OSR game.

All of my OSR games do the "dungeon thing" better than 5E, giving damage, rest, and healing real consequences. It is like the trope of the 15-minute adventuring day in 3.5E, where the party would go into an encounter, use all their best attacks, blow all their resources, and then walk out of the dungeon to return to town to rest and reset for the next room.

As a DM in those days, the person you were trying to rescue is dead, the monsters cleared out, and the treasure is gone. Or, I would organize an ambush of the party on the way to the dungeon with an overwhelming force and repeat that (slightly differently) each time they went back to town for a videogame reset - if they survived.

Sorry, you surprised the bad guys the first time you found the place.

Every time you go out, they get more and more ready for you or clear out.

The monsters aren't as stupid as you think they are.

However, 5E has entirely too generous rest mechanics and healing, which makes every danger inconsequential. In the old days, a fighter who took 4 points of damage from an arrow trap needed to suck it up and live with it for the rest of the day, and the party was required to conserve healing spells for critical moments. You went forward with damage and conditions since the clock was ticking and resources were depleted quickly and scarce.

A lack of care and attention to the environment burns resources faster, possibly leading to the loss of party members. Proceed too carefully; you take more time and encounter more wandering monsters. Developing the balance of momentum and caution defines great players, just like it does soldiers.

And if you do not have to deal with the possibility of loss, it isn't a game. Too much of 5E is a safe, all-ages amusement park ride, which is how the game and adventures are designed nowadays.

I love Tales of the Valiant and support indie and open 5E. But why am I playing a game I have to mod to get it the way I like when other games do the same thing but are easier? Is it the character's power and options? If that is why I play, those high-level overpower options will work against what I want in the long run. Why play a game as deadly as the OSR at a low level but then turn into an overpowered 5e at the high levels?

I remember the original Skyrim, where I had to heavily mod that game to turn it into a survival simulator. Then, better, more focused, and more feature-complete fantasy survival games came out that did the same and better with crafting, settlement building, and so many other things that supported the genre. The modded "Survival Skyrim" was still broken and cheatable in so many ways that I gave up trying to fix it to play the way I wanted.

Hardcore 5E feels like the same thing. I can get it to work at low levels. Still, eventually, the characters overpower the difficulty, and we are back to the same old 5E where the party hides in a small room in the Tomb of Horrors and takes a long rest, cooking over a campfire and posing for happy selfies as they bake cookies and pursue romance options.

In my game, the clown from Terrifier shows up and kills them all for being so stupid.

But that isn't in the module!

Obviously, you have never played an OSR game.

It is not AI art; it is my hand-made MS Paint art!

While it doesn't have to be a recognizable horror movie clown, it could be anything else in the monster book. When the players complain that it should have never happened to their characters because the rules protected them, you know where the 5E game falls flat.

Do the rules exist to protect characters or challenge them?

Some players prefer 5E because they are too afraid of the alternatives. The core design, 5E clones, and future versions of 5E become a safe-fulfilling prophecy. Players choose the game to be protected, so the designers add more protection with every book and expansion.

The concept that a GM is unfair because they are breaking a rule needs to go away.

Part of the definition of being a GM is being granted the power to break all the rules of the game. And don't get me started on the rules sections stating that "the GM wants to see the players succeed." That is another stealth player protection concept working its way in. A GM is a neutral arbiter of events and actions. As the original SBRPG game stated long ago, "A GM isn't a god; you just play one."

Otherwise, play with AI and turn on safe mode.

The OSR exists, and it is a unique, open, accepting, and vibrant place. There are plenty of challenging games here; even Shadowdark is an excellent example that goes halfway yet retains the fear and challenge. I embrace this game as a gateway to the fun of old-school gaming.

Also, I hear stories about players responding to the difficulty of Shadowdark by over-relying on negotiation as a tactic. In the old days, if the party made a deal with the goblins, the kobolds across the dungeon would hear about this and attack them on sight. There is a price to pay when dealing with the dungeon monsters, and what you get from one side will often take away a lot of other options and negotiations with others.

And if the townsfolk ever get wind of you making side deals with the goblins that burned down several farms, you will hear about it back home. There is always a price to pay somewhere. While non-combat solutions are great, constantly wheeling and dealing with the forces of evil will have a huge price later.

Corruption systems, reputation mechanics, and shifts in alignment help a great deal here. If your game doesn't have them, make a GM ruling that puts some hurt on the characters for being too chummy with the Devil and his pals.

But that isn't in the rules! You can't do that!

Obviously, you have never played an OSR game.