Addressing the allegations (a measured response to the criticism leveraged against my 5.5e review)

My review of the 2024 edition of Dungeons and Dragons (extensive, well-written, insightful) has been critically panned over at the 5- and 5.5e subreddits. I guess that is to be expected; posting a review there is like going into someone’s toilet and telling them their poop stinks. And I must admit the length of that review was pretty masturbatory. 

 

Then again, the quality of some of these “critiques”, and I use the term lightly, has caused me massive emotional damage. Maybe these TikTok-addled, brain-rotten zoomers could stand to read something longer than a tweet once in a while.

 

Anyway, let’s go!

“I wish martials got more features”

It looks like a huge rant when i only wish martials got some more features levels 13-16 and 7-9

Onednd is pretty nice imho

Hide rules are messy

Nick/twf/dwf should require less clarity

Some features for rogues/paladins/rangers/barbs/fighters would have been nice or level 8-12 feats

Overall its fun especially weapon abilities

 

See what I’m talking about? “It’s fine, lol, I wish my guy had some more cool abilities” – that’s the extent of your thoughts on a new edition of the world’s primary role-playing game? I’ve spent more cognitive function reviewing a McDonalds hamburger. This is why you have Trump in the White House.

“You have terrible opinions about art”

No u.

 

I knew I was getting into hot water, but I stand by my statements. I’ve given it some more thought, and I think the best way to describe the art style of 5.5e is that it’s slop. Not AI slop, maybe, but slop nevertheless. It might as well have been AI.

 

Pictured: bland-ass 5.5e art

“You proclaim things as fact that are just, like, your opinion”

More on the art. Of course I’m expressing an opinion – it’s a review of art! I thought I did a decent job explaining what led me to my opinion, though. But just in case, here’s a summary:

 

• The character art feels artificial and “cosplay-like,” as if people are posing in costumes rather than inhabiting a believable fantasy world.
• The styles are inconsistent and anachronistic (e.g., modern grooming, odd mashups like “orc cowboys”), which breaks immersion.
• Compared to 5e, which had a unified artistic vision and coherent cultural design, the new art mixes wildly different aesthetics (comic panels, metal-album dragon fights, cartoon vibes) with no single guiding purpose.
• Overall, the art lacks cohesion, world-building, and intentionality, and could have been generated by an AI.

 

In short, I dislike it because it feels incoherent, overly posed, culturally inconsistent, and disconnected from a believable shared world.

 

Do you think this poster has seen The Big Lebowski?

 

More drab 5.5e art

“Your review is long”

Your face is long. Get off TikTok.

“Something something woke”

Yeah, I knew using that word would be fanning the flames. But I can’t help myself from poking the bear.

 

In all seriousness, this is a nuanced topic and an important one. But instead of addressing it thoughtfully, WotC chose the coward’s way out and deleted the evil humanoid races. Then they drew a picture of friendly orc settlers hanging out with their orc kids and orc grannies, and just kind of raised their hands and went: “Well, here you go, you figure it out from here!”

 

That’s the gist of Mike’s criticism as well: rather than effecting actual change, they’re just avoiding the topic altogether. And in doing so, they half-arsed it, because all the underlying problems haven’t been solved! They just removed some of the most visible symptoms in orcs and drow.

 

Evil goblins? That’s fine, they’re fey! Orcs? Nope, not gonna go there. Those are fully actualised persons with rich culture, and any conflict with them is caused by complex geopolitical forces rather than innate violence!

 

I mean, you could have your world be like that. You could be Warcraft rather than Lord of the Rings. But WotC wants to have its cake and eat it. D&D’s default settings still assume evil orc warbands are coming to pillage your village.

 

Weaksauce.

“Having a race that is by default completely evil is just lazy writing”

Little appendix to the above, I liked this argument particularly. Sorry, Tolkien, stop being lazy. Also, plenty of completely evil races are still in D&D, like our aforementioned goblinos!

“Your math is wrong”

Citation needed. My math is perfect.

“Tomb of Annihilation is hardly the height of 5e content”

This is an interesting one! Let’s Google the adventures like this: <“adventure name” dungeons dragons> and count the results:

 

Hoard of the Dragon Queen – 200K

The Rise of Tiamat – 50K

Princes of the Apocalypse – 300K

Out of the Abyss – 1M

Curse of Strahd – 1.6M

Storm King’s Thunder – 450K

Tales from the Yawning Portal – 240K

Tomb of Annihilation – 875K

Waterdeep: Dragon Heist – 565K

Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage – 386K

Ghosts of Saltmarsh – 350K

Dragon of Icespire Peak – 175K

Baldur’s Gate: Descent Into Avernus – 400K

Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden – 460K

Candlekeep Mysteries – 325K

The Wild Beyond the Witchlight – 550K

Journeys through the Radiant Citadel – 250K

Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen – 425K

Keys from the Golden Vault – 260K

Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk – 330K

Vecna: Eve of Ruin – 667K

Quests from the Infinite Staircase – 230K

Dragon Delves – 200K

 

Is the number of Google results a direct measure of quality? Of course not. But it is a pretty good indicator for popularity, isn’t it! The top 5 most talked about adventures are:

 

• Curse of Strahd
• Out of the Abyss
• Tomb of Annihilation
• Vecna: Eve of Ruin
• Waterdeep: Dragon Heist

 

Look at that – outside of outlier Vecna (last adventure for 5e), all of them are in that era around ToA that I highlighted.

 

Also, if you need a more qualitative view of the drop-off in quality, here’s my spot review of Rime of the Frostmaiden.

Concluding Words

I didn’t want this article to “just end”, so I added this section, but I don’t really have much to say. I’m sorry, guys, 5.5e is just kinda bad. And people on the internet are dumb. More news at eleven.

 

Shrug-emoji.