So hey, remember when we wrote that book? Jef apparently didn’t because this special content powered by pre-orders has been sitting unedited on an external HD for months. The only thing that could force him to remember was the diligent reminders from listeners couple with the completion of our second book (details coming soon!). For now, please enjoy this fine list of things that we don’t like about D&D (or D&D Culture, we may have had some crossed wires in there). You earned it!
System Mastery 
Why are you so adamantly against classes/paths having different degrees of complexity? I don’t understand it. Do you genuinely not understand that players can be uncomfortable with a complicated class? That not all people want it?
But what if you’re a player that both likes the theme of a class and complexity? Would it not make more sense to allow each class to be played in a simple manner, but allow for an additional layer of complexity for those who want to get more involved with it?
I’d say it’s a bad idea to design a class around what kind of player you THINK should be most interested in playing it. A class’ theme and role should be more important, with the final complexity determined by the various customization options.
I also find it interesting that this Little Brother Fallacy always has to reduce options for Fighters. What if MY hypothetical little brother just wants to be a Wizard that lobs a Lightning Bolt every round and nothing else?
Hello guys,
Greetings from the Land of Po! Long time listener, first time… responder(?) here.
I actually watched your adventure at Wizards’ live, with your extremely permissive DM, and had quite an enjoyable night.
Having also started a school RPG club last year and presenting five different systems before even mentioning D&D, I agree wholeheartedy with your points. Even Honey Heist was more comprehensible, run faster and smoother. I tried to make it more palpable to high school students by removing info about alignment, rolling up ability scores, ect. and it still took me as much as three sessions worth of preparation and running the game in other systems to get through starter adventure in Lost Mines of something or other… Hopefully we can return to the club someday, but not to D&D. I only have 2-3 hours per meeting and I’d rather use those up to present whole spectrum of games.
– Keep up the good work, D.
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The thing about the eight-hour short rest and seven day long rest house rule is that it’s in part designed to make spellcasting worse,
This is meant (once again, in part) to incentivise PCs to choose martial classes and perhaps dip into casting.
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Ill admit, i am guilty of the “20 pages house rule” stuff too, but thats because i play basically only with same group of friends and we dont have much time these days to learn new systems from scratch that MIGHT be better (i dont know where to search at this point). At least (i hope) homerules are here to make games simpler.
There is also part when i got taught the game with houserules and realised that i have to add my OWN houserules to counter THEIR houserules (i tihnk they might misunderstood the book too) or just say “look, book says this, we do this”. A good example would be “guaraenteed hit on critical chance, regardless of dice value” houserule. With crits of 12-20 being possible that would mean 40% chance to hit ANYTING.
Suffice to say we play “D&D local edition: 3,5 flavored” at this point.