Old D&D

>big goddamn hero blowing all competition away
There's a lot of campaign space between
>achieving enough to be someone worthy of note
and
>a big goddamn hero blowing all competition away

Also I generally come from a perspective of a DM, and I've found that
>someone shows up with a character with no bonds to the campaign
happens a lot more often when the characters are required to be nobodies. There's no rule saying that the past accomplishments can't be related to the worldbuilding and campaign, unless you build a campaign in total before the players even have their characters built. I've found that seeing the characters first, then building a campaign skeleton designed to engage those characters' drives works a lot better.

IDK about you, but before I experienced anything "D&D," I read fantasy novels as a kid, and we've been trying to recreate the "essence" of those same novels. Unless the fantasy novel in question was written by GRRM, modern D&D does it better.

>My point is that in newer editions monsters are utterly toothless
even beginner module lost mines of phandelver has a green dragon that will TPK the party easy

No...Combat is just alternative to shit roleplay skills, this is why I am having fun with my group - they try going around combat by talking or sneaking or other stuff (I even give more xp for such solutions)

That sounds a lot more like a problem that comes from switching to a lazy undescriptive DM than switching to a newer edition.

Seems like a bit of a false binary. There's a lot of space on the threat-spectrum between Hellhounds in 2e and complete toothlessness.

well that's a bit out of left field for the topic
but isn't that a problem a dm could easily solve with some number adjustments? if they're looking to run a high lethality kind of game it's not that hard to tweak is it

i'm kind of confused

>Unless the fantasy novel in question was written by GRRM
...or Howard or Moorcock or Leiber? Seriously go read the books D&D was created to emulate. Snowflake fantasy is trash.

>throwing high level monsters at low level parties results in difficult encounters
Oh wow, I could never have figured that out myself. 5e's combat is atrocious, though.

Try throwing that same dragon at a party that's properly leveled for it, see if the fight's exciting at all.

Try fighting lower level monsters, too. See if the town guard can do anything at all against a 10th level PC.

The problem is that everyone's HP is so bloated that tactics do not really matter much, and individual rolls don't have much weight. What you do in single round doesn't matter much, because hit points scale much faster than killing power. The worst offender are classes that can gain resistances (especially the bear totem barbarian, who can just jerk off for ten rounds while he tanks an army's worth of damage), but even wizards now have a d6 hit die. I guess daggers and arrows are no big deals nowadays, because you can just sleep the damage off in 8 hours. Boromir was just a pansy.

The whole fight hinges on if you got X abilities and enough levels (for the HPs). If you do, you will win, if you don't, tough luck, better run.

The party isn't going to take down a drider at first level, because they have like one fucking hundred and twenty HPs, but in AD&D they might, because they have about 30. It might be hard, but it's possible.

I think you're just playing modern D&D wrong.

Because WotC figured out that sallow instant gratification sells better than a more fulfilling but long-term progression.

I'm in the middle of writing a 5e homebrew supplement that returns all the classes to their original 1e AD&D low-power flavor.

I've only done Cleric and Druid so far but I can already tell my players who have only played 5e will be saying "wtf what's the point I don't have any powers".

Also reintroducing specific weapon proficiencies instead the blanket version modern editions use. Can't wait for the salt.

Honestly this was a problem in old D&D too once you started to get past the first few levels. There's just no tactical depth unless mid to high-level magic users are present, and once the hitpoint bloat starts it's very easy to tell which side is going to win within the first few rounds.

You sound like an awful GM.

So the problem is that people don't die in two hits?
Except the whole 'they still fucking do, especially at low levels' thing?

Then make better monsters yourself - I can tpk a party of lvl 5 with a single kobold in head on combat - be creative.

5e is for DM to get off there ass and do stuff XD

Were older groups more stable than newer ones? Did they meet more frequently? I can't see how anyone ever made it past the lowest levels in old-school D&D., considering how slowly experience is gained, how much experience you need to level up, and how many false starts you have to endure with low-level character death. Best case scenario, you can keep a group together and interested in the campaign for a year or two. That's enough to reach high levels in 5e, but in AD&D you could barely get to level 5 with that.

This sounds more like an issue with writing in itself. Because
>characters are everymen
Sounds like really shitty writing when you put it up right before saying that "having unique backgrounds is a bad thing".

Remind me the last time someone got praised for writing a character that was a completely regular blank slate without any interesting individualities or depth to them, and their most defining trait was "human", "elf" or "dwarf".

Or enlighten me on how adding depth, personality, and fleshing out a backstory to an character won't result in having them a "one in a million background".

People aren't carbon copies, OP. Even two people who share a background like "son of a farmer and a housewife, evil monsters raided village, family and friends got killed" can end up like completely different characters. One may become a righteous paladin to prevent people from suffering like he did in the past, other may become an edgelord murderhobo who is dark and brooding and wants to murder all goblins, etc.

No, they played differently. You gained XP primarily from finding treasure rather than overcoming combat encounters, so large parts of the game revolved around avoiding combat encounters to find the treasure the monsters were guarding.

You should try it sometime. It's fun.

>Old D&D
Roll 3d6 in order. You had secretly hoped to play a shy wizard and let your friend do the talking for you? WELL TOO BAD, YOU ARE A BARD NOW, GO FUCK YOURSELF WITH A D4

>Modern D&D
Hey man, don't ask me: ask yourself what you want to be and then proceed with point buy. Here's there rules for that: good luck and have fun!

>Old DeeNDee
Welp, looks like your fucking shit character died LIKE A BITCH fighting a SHITTY GROUP OF GOBLINS. Better go and make a new character if you don't want to sit WITH YOUR THUMBS UP YOUR ASS for the rest of the session. 3d6 in order, chop chop.

>Modurr DeenDee
Aw, you died. Bad luck there chum: you had a backup made though, no? Don't worry if you didn't, character creation doesn't take long anyway. Better luck next time!

>Oh'law D n D
Oh, before I forget, since you DIED LIKE A BITCH, you also get to play as a SHITTIER CHARACTER! -1 level from the lowest level of the party and no Experience. Bitch.

>ModurnDnD
Dude, don't worry, we'll get you roped into the story in no time. It's going to be okay.

inb4
>stop defending new deeNdee
>implying dungeons and dragons is actually any good to begin with

>new character creation taking less time than old character creation
Don't you have a 4000-feat spreadsheet to go sift through?

I have tried it, and that's how I know how slow progression is. At low levels, the treasure you get is measured in silver and copper pieces. And it's divided among the whole party, plus any henchmen or hirelings. It's slow as fuck and makes you want your character to just settle down and get a day job.

We play for circa year with our group. So far, we had 2 TPKs and half dozen dead characters on top of it. What you're saying doesn't seem to be the case for us.

Frankly, i wouldn't want to play game focused on earning treasure - i enjoy heroic DnD, where heroes who fights evil and in the end, saves the day. Earning treasure there is completely irrelevant.

not in 5e.

>At low levels, the treasure you get is measured in silver and copper pieces.

I suppose it might not have that much difference time-wise.

However, there are not many feats in 5e, nor is there a lot of need for spreasheets.

It's been made more casual/beginner friendly.

>It's been made more casual/beginner friendly.
I know i am probably in minority, but i wished they would make it EVEN MORE casual.

In old D&D it was impossible, both literally and figuratively, to roll up a bard. Not only were the ability score requirements tougher than those of any other class, even paladins, but you had to dual class twice, something you weren't even normally allowed to do, and gain 5-9 levels each in fighter and thief before you earned your lute.

I think the game would become more like FATE at that point. Or Dungeon World...

>Thinking it was easy to become a bard in Old D&D
You obviously don't have any idea what you're talking about. You know nothing about the older editions other than memes you've picked up on Veeky Forums that you proceed to spout.

>Old D&D
>The characters are everymen of their races who end up becoming renowned heroes with powerful abilities and their own armies through their deeds

You have never actually played old D&D, right?

It's terrible, user. Who in their right mind would tell lies on the internet?

I know enough to say that things back then were not as fun as they are today.

Well feats are optional to make it even simpler

And if you make non caster or low spell number caster (warlock, ranger) game it's even less complex

How would you know if your entire understanding of older editions is based on the shitposts of others? You've never played the older editions, you've never read the rulebooks and you've likely never heard of what it's actually like to play them from someone who actively does so. You've let Veeky Forums do your thinking for you and internalized the narrative that is predominant here. You've fallen for entertainment motivated propaganda and as a result hold opinions on things that you do not actually understand.
You've been brainwashed.

So what you are saying is that there's no need to roll 3d6 in order and that I can create a character with point buy and decide class and race before I decide what abilities I want to have? And that when my character dies I will play on the same level and not go -1 negative level because I was unlucky rolling decahedrons? And that wizards are the same as martials power-wise, meaning that they can both be helpful in a group even at later levels? And that alignments don't matter because morality and ethics are not set in stone like some people would have us believe?

>Howard
Ah yes, those disposable mook protagonists, Kull, Conan, and Solomon Kane

> Moorcock
ETERNAL CHAMPION with LEGENDARY ARTIFACTS sure does sound unsnowflakey

>Were older groups more stable than newer ones?

It was harder to find a group, so you put up with more bullshit so you could play. Which is why people like got anyone to even play with them.

Abilities are of almost no importance is OD&D so rolling 3d6 is not nearly as terrible as you are implying.
Also, you seem under the belief that dead players reroll a new character with a level less. That is wrong.
You start again with a level 1 character.

Hirelings, user. You pick frank the sellsword, he takes your old gear, the fighter fights on.

Yeah, that could work too. It depends on the setting and the GM, really. Starting back from level 1 was not this hard, especially when you had a bunch of higher levels, hirelings, and the dead character's gear to help you on the way.

Yeah. My Basic /Expert game just hit real world year 5. The Binder of Lost Heroes is about 300 pages strong. Some people have been salty, others just went with the flow.

Party level at the moment ranges from 1 to 6, with several old pcs retired as major players.

Hit point bloat wasn't a thing, because you stopped gaining hp rolls after a certain point and only got a small, fixed number (with fighters alone also gaining their con mod)
The difference between a level 1 and a level 12 wizard is about 25 hp. The difference between a level 12 wizard and a level 20 wizard is exactly 8 hp.

You were allowed to dual class as many times as you want. You just can't do it unless your most recent class is at least tied for highest level and you can never go back to a class you have already left.
The actual problem was that you couldn't use any of your old class features except for your house total untill your latest class was equal or better than your other ones.

>house total
HP total.

All I can hear is greybeard complaining.

I'm not going to force them to play it. The main campaign will stay vanilla 5e.

Actually yes they were far more stable but that may have just been because we were in highschool and had more time. We played a lot. Also worth mentioning we were playing AD&D 1e back in like 2008 at age 14, not 1978 and we still preferred it to 4e when that came out.

Man you guys get really upset when people call out new editions for their video game-esque instant-hero style.

Nigga, did you just try to use Howere and Morcock to justify unexceptional revolving-case protagonists? Are you retarded?

Howard and Morcock are literally the authors who's styles I emulate by making my PC's feel like they are the protagonist of their own stories.... because... you know... Conan.... Slomon K.... Elric.... have YOU read any of those authors buddy?

With the exception of 5e, which seeks to emulate a fictionalized version of D&D as defined by memories of D&D as described by grognards online, each edition of D&D has gotten better at recreating the pulp fantasy feel of the original source materials than the previous.

I'm sorry I triggered you, but can you try again with a more coherent argument please?

What can you expect from a guy who replies with bad memes?

Probably the worst thing about the "1st Level Superhero" approach WoTC has taken is how it actually makes the player base itself worse and worse.

If it's so shit why are you playing it?

>Man you guys get really upset when people call out new editions for their video game-esque instant-hero style.

My first session of 5e ended with a party wipe from fucking goblins.

4e has this beauty for all your rusty dagger shanktown needs.

An Orc barbarian or two with cleave is a TPK machine in 3.x-land before level 3.

Gygax statted Conan as like a 24th Level Fighter and 12th Level Thief in AD&D.

In 5e, he'd be like 9th or 10th level. This speaks volumes about the snowflake creep.

>In 5e, he'd be like 9th or 10th level

Do you have anything to back your claim with, or...?

>Welp, looks like your fucking shit character died LIKE A BITCH fighting a SHITTY GROUP OF GOBLINS. Better go and make a new character if you don't want to sit WITH YOUR THUMBS UP YOUR ASS for the rest of the session. 3d6 in order, chop chop.

>Not making backups in a low level dungeon crawl
Git gud.

At least it's not the Paizo playerbase

How about, since you seem to think that Howard and Morcock being inspiration for D&D justifies the protagonists in campaigns being unexceptional everymen who rapidly die and are replaced with new similar characters, name a single Howard or Morcock protagonist who's anything less than a demigod of manliness (or edginess in the case of Morcock.)
>makes the player base itself worse and worse
Yeah, no, forever DM here, and keeping players engaged in their characters' motivations is a lot harder when everybody knows they're meaningless, and going to be replaced soon. This leads to uninteresting murderhobo for the sake of gold alone, rather than three dimensional characters motivated by actual relateable drives to fight evil and save the world.... you know... like the overwhelming majority of fantasy novels around.

Guys, if you want to argue that D&D has nothing to do with fantasy novels, and should not feel like them, and that DM's who try to do that are shoving a square-peg into a round-hole, then make THAT argument, at-least there's some validity to it, though I would still disagree. However, trying to use the literary inspirations for D&D to justify older editions' inability to recreate the feel of those novels is ridiculous.

>It's another New Things Are Bad episode

>>Roll 3d6 in order. You had secretly hoped to play a shy wizard and let your friend do the talking for you? WELL TOO BAD, YOU ARE A BARD NOW, GO FUCK YOURSELF WITH A D4

Someone clearly doesn't know how Bards worked in 1e AD&D.

>Gygax had to stat Conan so high level that the game no longer functions at that level, and almost nobody will ever reach that level of play.
>In 5e, Conan is playable at the levels where the game actually functions
.... good? So you're agreeing that newer editions are better at emulating the essential fantasy novel experience better?

>You start again with a level 1 character.
Well, that is just shittier gameplay right there, just like rolling 3d6 in order, especially when you can't even cast spells if your intelligence or wisdom is higher than a certain percentage. That is stupid, old, stupidly old and only stupid game design. There's a reason modern computers run faster and have better parameters than older ones.

The same can be said for tabletop games.

>implying the GM would let you roll up various characters
>implying that you couldn't just roll until you got better stats and a character you liked and settle with that one instead
>implying implications
Git gud

I've found only more murderhobos in newer editions because characters are so strong they hardly have to worry about anything. This is speaking as both a player and a GM.

Fear of dying makes players proceed with caution and better instills a sense of realism because they don't know they're going to win nearly every fight like they do in 5e.

Magic Users were very careful with how they played because they had limited spells and limited Hp. Now it's just warlocks who casts scaling cantrips every turn.

You can just go look at what /r/dnd has become just from the past 2 years of 5e to confirm the playerbase has gotten shittier.

>There's no danger in fighting, and thus, no excitement.
If I can TPK a first level party by being smart with a trio of kuo-toa you're not using the monsters right.

The fuck does masculinity have to do with anything? Howard's characters are all highly skilled manly men, but none of them are demigods. Elric might fit that label, and even then modern D&D characters just blast past his level like it's nothing. I also wanna point out you haven't mentioned Lieber at all yet.

Pulp fantasy isn't about superheroes. Modern D&D is about superheroes. Modern D&D-inspired snowflake fantasy is about superheroes.

The warlock is a literal equivalent of a guy with a bow for the first 5 levels.

Or your players are just really really dumb.

>firing a bow into melee without pentalty or risk of hitting friendlies every round

You're just bringing more dumb stuff up for me.

1. OD&D was extremely low power, but even there the PCs were not everymen. Normal people were 0th Level characters with no bonuses or abilities at all. The levels in OD&D were named, and the name of a level 1 Fighting Man was "Veteran" [a 4th level was Hero]. In AD&D this became even more pronounced, as the default method of char gen became 4d6 drop lowest, which meant even at birth a PC was superior to normal people.

2. Even in the older editions, Conan should have been only between 6-10th level, IF THAT. People back then had the strange tendency to take staples of the fantasy genre and make them like 48th Level Swordmasters that were unkillable death machines. Gandalf, Aragorn, Conan, you name it.

The problem is those characters were usually only mid-level or even relatively low-level. If Conan was level 24 he could wrestle adult Red Dragons with ease and survive multiple falls at terminal velocity, and anyone whose ready Conan knows thats an entire tier above his greatest feats.
Seconding this, characters in low level 5e are only marginally more durable then low level characters in AD&D, and they have the disadvantage that the monsters are more durable too.

In AD&D most common monsters had 1 HD or even 1 HD-1, meaning a single solid hit [easy enough with Weapon Specialization and a good sword or darts] would take them out.

Not to mention, in 5e Cleaving is an optional rule in the Monster Manual, but in AD&D a warrior can make a number of attacks equal to his level against 1 HD or lower opponents.

Not to mention that in 5e, magic items are technically optional, whereas in AD&D they are part of the standard loot tables and came up with great frequency after the first few levels.

Cleaving is an optional rule in the Dungeon Master Guide*

The abundance of retroclones and OSR inspired games that have been coming out the past few years suggest that this is a known problem and many players agree.

EB uses the same mechanics as a bow in 5e, it just deals different damage.

When you use monsters as a threat in your game, do you just throw them in a rectangular room with some weapons and roll initiative?

Because even with stupid players that's the only way "bloo bloo the monsters aren't OP enough" is an excuse. Plan an encounter before the players stumble into it. It doesn't take much to build or set traps, it's easier still to simply consider positioning for an ambush. Adventurers are often loud, even crafty ones, and more often than not the monsters are gonna know they're coming for one reason or another. Man-catchers, nets, ranged weapons and basic cover like tabled upended or putting things against a door will always make a challenge interesting. You can spice up an encounter beyond belief by simply considering that maybe Goblin #3 is one of the tribe shamans and can fire off a firebolt at the start of the encounter, lighting up the concoction steaming in the bucket that was rigged to fall onto the smarmy cunt who just walked into the room.

Maybe you don't forget that the monster can use all the basic skills like hiding, sneaking and using objects in the room just as well as a PC with the same number and type of appendages. Maybe you don't forget that many of the monsters with spell-like abilities have non-combat ones that can be repurposed for combat if you think for five minutes, and have probably figured this out over thousands of years of inherited knowledge from their forefathers. Maybe you remember that strategy isn't a secret knowledge only the PCs get to access. But killing PCs is an easy fucking art as long as you do more than sit a monster down and wait for people to roll dice at it.

>In old DnD, players can choose to play as a small selection of characters with the promise that they will develop in a small selection of ways into a small selection of different characters.

How is this more desirable than playing as the characters you would like to be, and developing then in the way you'd like to see them develop, with no restrictions
?

>without pentalty or risk of hitting friendlies every round
You didn't read the rules on spell attacks, did you?

>The fuck does masculinity have to do with anything?
... are you seriously asking what Manliness has to do with Howard's writing? Really? Come on man.
>modern D&D characters just blast past his level like it's nothing.
Except they don't. I can't speak much for 5e, because I don't play or run it, but I've been running 4e for a long time, and 2e for a long time before that, and in 4e, PC's do not fly past Conan/Elric status like it's nothing. Usually it takes an entire campaign to climb from lvl 1 to epic tier, but once you reach epic tier, yeah, you basically ARE King Conan and/or Elric tier. That's not a bad thing. The players don't begin as demigods, they begin as plucky heroes who clearly have a destiny to fulfill... you know... like a fantasy novel.

>I also wanna point out you haven't mentioned Lieber at all yet.
Because I'm not as familiar with his work as I am with Howard and Morcock. Simple as that.

>Pulp fantasy isn't about superheroes.
You know, even though you're using "superheroes" as a pejorative, I still disagree. Just take a look at Barsoom: John Carter, from the get-go, has extreme strength thanks to Mars gravity, and swordsman skill thanks to the civil war. He doesn't become the "Jeddak of Jeddaks" until the conclusion of a long campaign's worth of books. At no point did the author waste a lot of time about random mooks astral projecting to mars until one got lucky enough to survive long enough to learn how Barsoom actually works... because that part isn't interesting. Even if we assume that happened, the book doesn't focus on that part, and neither should a campaign.

It's not like every character who isn't a worthless mook at-risk of dying to an errant random-encounter goblin is automatically an unstoppable demigod... there's a lot of room between the two.

The DMG for AD&D 2e had a discusion on this topic for the 3d6 vs 4d6 char gen.

It said something like historically the idea is that PJ are regular people which are only different from others in that they have a drive to be adventurers/achieve things this is represented by 3d6 chargen.

Then explained that a newer trend viewed adventurers as inherently better people which used 4d6 chargen.

Literally strawman.

The better/more popular ones still aren't as mechanically deadly, nor do they star "everymen" as you think.

Heck, I've yet to play a DCC with funnels, despite having 3-4 mini adventures in it.

As you have guessed, the number of character deaths after the level 0 funnels actually isn't high at all, assuming non retarded players.

Which brings me to Monsters/fights were never especially deadly after first level, unless they massively outpowered the party. Traps were. Environment were. Stupid, stupid fucking decisions were. Adventures were written with primarily these in mind, so that the players can overcome them.

That the mechanics for fights got more involved and intricate doesn't stop you from running a game like that. Yes, the focus shifted, but you still got your old, amazing tools to make your overconfident players suffer.

modern gaming is complete shit compared to old school gaming from the 80ies.
I honestly think that modern d20 system games are complete shit across the board. It's the same tired ass system for every game, with a paper thin veneer of setting laid onto it.
>t. actual oldfag

>I've found only more murderhobos in newer editions
I've found the opposite to be true.

In older editions, character-death was inevitable, so players weren't encouraged to get invested in their characters hopes, dreams, and drives. In the absence of an in-character RP-driven motivation, players would default to "steal shit and get rich bitches" almost all the time.

Yeah, newer editions have a much lower chance of character death, but I've noticed that makes players more comfortable actually getting into character and basing their characters actions off of reasons that internally make sense to their character's role-play decisions and background. On top of that, that really doesn't mean "gloves off" because only a DM with no creativity whatsoever can think of no consequences other than "dead, roll another character." Once you've got your players actually invested in their character and their internal motivations, then you can threaten those motivations, and actually create a compelling adventure, rather than another "story" about mercenaries raiding tombs until they die or get rich enough to retire.

TLDR
>Players not invested in their characters own motivations default to murderhobo tomb raiders
>High lethality disincentivizes character investment
>Low lethality incentivizes character investment
>lethality is not the only form of consequence if you're a good DM

>... are you seriously asking what Manliness has to do with Howard's writing? Really? Come on man.
No, I'm asking why it has any bearing in this particular discussion. It's a total non-sequitur.

>Except they don't. I can't speak much for 5e, because I don't play or run it, but I've been running 4e for a long time, and 2e for a long time before that, and in 4e, PC's do not fly past Conan/Elric status like it's nothing. Usually it takes an entire campaign to climb from lvl 1 to epic tier, but once you reach epic tier, yeah, you basically ARE King Conan and/or Elric tier. That's not a bad thing. The players don't begin as demigods, they begin as plucky heroes who clearly have a destiny to fulfill... you know... like a fantasy novel.
Conan isn't epic-tier, though. You're totally inflating his ability beyond that shown in the actual stories. How do you justify putting him next to level 20 D&D characters?

>Just take a look at Barsoom: John Carter, from the get-go, has extreme strength thanks to Mars gravity, and swordsman skill thanks to the civil war. He doesn't become the "Jeddak of Jeddaks" until the conclusion of a long campaign's worth of books. At no point did the author waste a lot of time about random mooks astral projecting to mars until one got lucky enough to survive long enough to learn how Barsoom actually works... because that part isn't interesting. Even if we assume that happened, the book doesn't focus on that part, and neither should a campaign.
Do you have a point you're making here

>It's not like every character who isn't a worthless mook at-risk of dying to an errant random-encounter goblin is automatically an unstoppable demigod... there's a lot of room between the two.
Good strawman

>players weren't encouraged to get invested in their characters hopes, dreams, and drives
You couldn't be more fucking wrong. that has nothing to do with editions and everything to do with shit DMs and even shittier players

>The characters are everymen of their races

Maybe YOU were. I was a Paladin. There weren't a lot of those, to the point where a Paladin dying or falling was considered SERIOUS FUCKING BUSINESS in the cosmic scheme of things.

You weren't even allowed to BE a Paladin unless you have stupendous ability scores at character creation.

> t. young oldfag agreeing

That level 0 start though

>Do you have a point you're making here
Yes, that fantasy novels tend to have an arc, where the protagonist(s) begin as exceptional, but not yet world-breaking, often seemingly protected by destiny, until they eventually climb their way up to saving/changing/ruling the world. New editions of D&D, particurlarly 4e, do this extremely well. Older editions, especially 2e, do not do this well.... they do their own thing well, but not emulating the feel of fantasy novels.

>It's not like every character who isn't a worthless mook at-risk of dying to an errant random-encounter goblin is automatically an unstoppable demigod... there's a lot of room between the two.
>Good strawman
You are the one who said "Modern D&D is about superheroes." which, until one reaches epic-tier (or whatever the 5e equivalent is,) it really is not. There's a lot of wiggle room between where modern D&D starts and "superhero." It does eventually REACH superhero, but that's a good thing, because so do fantasy novels.

5e isn't great if you prepare everything to be level appropriate.
It runs best if you don't scale jack shit.

- If your level 6 party wants to slug it out with 50 orcs, that's their problem.
- If your level 11 party wants to fight an ancient black dragon, that's also their problem.
- If your level 15 party decides to fight a couple of CR 5 monsters and they've got the jump on 'em, just speed things along and ask them how they fuck them up, unless there's a good reason to play it out, cause nobody wants to wait for that shit.

Just make sure to show signs of monsters ahead of time whenever possible, let them know a monster's rough CR by reading bestiaries or making lore checks,
and in combat, always roll your dice in public so there won't be any pressure to fudge anything.

Never plan anything around the PCs level ever again. Just make up a variety of stuff themed around an arbitrary CR value, and plop it down, then just let your players make the choices.

Maybe they do something crazy to get to a big reward. Maybe they play it safe. Up to them. Ain't your problem.

This makes the game amazing.

>John Carter

Mah man

>Why?
Because things change and the things people find entertaining change and everything you love that you think is traditional and worthy is equally transitory and meaningless as the next generation ignores it or even outright thinks it's stupid.

Speaking as an old 2e player here.

>How do you justify putting him next to level 20 D&D characters?

In 4e?

Easy, level 20 is still paragon. That means he doesn't even have an epic destiny like being a destined hero who will rest in valhalla or something. He's merely on the cusp of it.

>I disagree, I find the parts where you're a big goddamn hero blowing all competition away to be the boring part.
This is you basically admitting that it's a subjective opinion and not an objective one, and thus you have no grounds for complaining about this subject anymore because you admit that it all just depends on the person.

>Never plan anything around the PCs level ever again

Shit, I stopped doing that back in 3rd Edition. Personal rules of DM'ing:

1) Even when they aren't, your players are always intentionally trying to screw up your plans. One person can't out-think four people, so don't even try. Just throw stuff at them and then afterwards make them think it was part of the plan. Reward innovation, but otherwise, let the dice fall where they may.

2) Even when you think you are, you are never challenging your players enough. They're wily bastards who will escape from anything. So go on, throw another Rancor into that pit. Serves the fuckers right for screwing up your plans.

>Yes, that fantasy novels tend to have an arc, where the protagonist(s) begin as exceptional, but not yet world-breaking, often seemingly protected by destiny, until they eventually climb their way up to saving/changing/ruling the world. New editions of D&D, particurlarly 4e, do this extremely well. Older editions, especially 2e, do not do this well.... they do their own thing well, but not emulating the feel of fantasy novels.
Ah yeah, nothing emulates the visceral excitement of pulp fantasy like crunching through 4e's sterile grid-bound combat or combing a list of 4,000 3.pf feats

>You are the one who said "Modern D&D is about superheroes." which, until one reaches epic-tier (or whatever the 5e equivalent is,) it really is not. There's a lot of wiggle room between where modern D&D starts and "superhero." It does eventually REACH superhero, but that's a good thing, because so do fantasy novels.
3.pf becomes a superhero game a hell of a lot earlier than epic-level. It starts to transition around level 6, and by level 12 you're ready for some plane jumping. I've only played a 4e campaign up to level 6 so I can't comment much there. 2e kinda starts getting crazy, but earlier editions never do. There's a clear trend here.

And again, Howard's characters never reached what's considered to be 'epic level' by D&D standards. Nor did Lieber's. Elric is questionable but I'd definitely say he stopped short. Characters at that level of power are the exception but you seem to be considering them the rule.

This entire thread is about taste, and there is no such thing as an "objective opinion," that's an oxymoron.

This entire thread is an argument about taste... 97 posts in and you don't get that?