D&D 5E Why I Think D&DN is In Trouble

I seem to recall reading that 200k players participated in the play test. That doesn't sound like a dying brand to me.

D&D is down, but not out. I agree that they completely misread both the market and their customers (something D&D seems to be cursed with, TSR had the same problem post-EGG), and the choice to abandon OGL was really one of their facepalmier moments. But the brand is strong, and even if 5e is a disaster (and I seriously doubt that), D&D will be the standard-bearer for fantasy role-playing for the foreseeable future.

The notion that 5e may not even ship is bizarre. Wizards may often be tone deaf at times, but they're not quite that bad. It'll ship, and based on my own play test experiences, it's going to be average at the very worst, and quite possibly it'll be great. (that's not fanboi-speak...I'm one of those who abandoned the ship for Pathfinder.)

FWIW, I didn't think 4e was terrible. It's definitely broken in parts, and I'd love to see Wizards give it the OGL treatment so some company could do for 4e what Paizo did for 3.5. But it clearly wasn't what the market wanted, and that's the most important driver.

Eh. 4E isn't what WotC wanted it to be, and wasn't for everyone, but it definitely had a market, despite the goofy stuff they started pulling near the end of it.

With 5E, and really any purchase, it's best to focus on "Does this actual product in front of me have what I want." It's not wise to make purchases just because maybe later future purchases will justify that purchase - purchase what actually shows up on the bookshelf. If you do that with 5E, even if they cancel it the moment the core books are released, you'll have made good purchasing decisions for yourself. If it's a flop, you won't feel cheated because you got what you paid for, and if it's a hit they'll keep on pumping out more things for you to consider on an individual basis. Just don't go into 5E with the hope that "next book" will fix what you're missing, and you won't be disappointed, whatever happens.

I think the initial release of the 3 core rule books (if WotC goes down that route) will sell tremendously well. Beyond that I'd be surprised if 5E is as successful as 3E.

Pour said:

Man, I would have bought that up. Incorporating everything they learned along the way, math fixes and errata, but also the lessons of late-edition adventure and monster design from the get go, catered to all adventuring tiers, and eliminated the redundancy... It would have been awesome.

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Unfortunately, the backlash from 3.5e was such that they didn't feel they could go down that route. Instead, Essentials fills much the same niche for 4e - a new set of core rulebooks, a new entry point, with a cleaned up ruleset. It's just that instead of introducing the "cleaned up ruleset" all at once (as in 3.5e), Essentials merely incorporated the incremental changes to date.

The problem was that by making it clear that this was not 4.5e, but rather just a new set of supplements, they pulled the market out from under those books - enough existing 4e players simply elected to stick with what they had, and likely get the updates via DDI, that Essentials never really took off. I suspect it did well enough, and probably better than any other single supplement for 4e, but I would be very surprised if it came anywhere near the sales of 3.5e, the original 4e core, or whatever they had hoped for.

Which is a shame, because I rather liked the format of those Essentials books.

As far as I can see, there are two really big reasons why WotC don't want to do a 4.5e. The first of these, and probably the biggest, is that they really want to recapture a significant number of players who had already rejected 4e. An all-new 5e has the potential to do that (though whether it will succeed is another question); a 4.5e really doesn't.

The other issue, and one that did 4e in general no favours, is that that edition works much better if you use minis, a virtual tabletop, or at least some visual means of tracking position. But WotC effectively ended their D&D Miniatures line several years ago, and the D&D VTT never quite materialised. I really suspect that a big part of the 4e strategy was to play on the synergies inherent in selling both the RPG and the minis (or VTT) to go with it. Strip away the second pillar, though...

The problem is, I don't see how a 4.5e could be any less dependent on minis than 4e in general is. Redesigning the whole tactical combat engine to work without is a major undertaking.

dmccoy1693 said:

I agree. IMO, all the 4E hate really came from a perception by the 3.x crowd (oh which I was apart of) feeling like we were told that our game was crap. There were very few WotC people that were able to talk about 4E being awesome without overtly saying that 3E was terrible. My personal favorite was when a Wizards staffer, on Wizards.com said something very close to (if not a direct quote), "In third edition, all a Heal check told you was what you stepped in."

No one (atleast from Wizards) saying that this time around. So I really don't think that there will be such passionate edition wars this time around. Heck, I'm hopeful that any edition wars will be more like edition skirmishes instead.

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This is simply a false assertion about the Next team. To take one obvious example Mearls has been repeating edition war rhetoric like "Shouting wounds closed" as a justification for not having warlords.

tangleknot said:

Unless your a gamer most people have never heard of Pathfinder (PF), 13th age, Gurps, WOD, AEG- games, etc... but ask anyone alive during the 80's, and they've heard of D&D. Gamers who want to get back into the genre, or who are new to RPG's will probobly gravitate to the newest edition of D&D, not because its better but because its available and they know the brand.

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I disagree on one point there. I believe that the WoD did break out in the 90s. Not as much as D&D in the 80s, but with TV shows and video games it had a pretty fair run.

DaveMage said:

That's one thing 4E failed to do that all other editions had done, and that's to have at least 1 signature setting for the edition. Basic had Mystara, 1E had Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, and Dragonlance. 2E had Planescape, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, and Birthright. 3E (well, 3.5) had Eberron. 4E had nothing new.

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The Nentir Vale/PoLand (4e's default setting) was a new setting with new history, new cosmology and new geography. It was lightly scetched but was definitely new. 3.0 on the other hand had absolutely nothing.

Neonchameleon said:

This is simply a false assertion about the Next team. To take one obvious example Mearls has been repeating edition war rhetoric like "Shouting wounds closed" as a justification for not having warlords.

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To be more precise, William Wallace as a Warlord, some Irish guy who lost a hand, and, "He didn't shout his hand back on." Followed by some sniggering.

To which the obvious response remains, "He didn't sleep it back on either."

Bluenose said:

To be more precise, William Wallace as a Warlord, some Irish guy who lost a hand...

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Nitpick: it was Campbell, who was Scottish, the father of WW's friend Hamish.

That's "Braveheart", of course, which bears about as much resemblance to actual history as D&D injuries and healing (any edition) does to reality.

Neonchameleon said:

The Nentir Vale/PoLand (4e's default setting) was a new setting with new history, new cosmology and new geography. It was lightly scetched but was definitely new. 3.0 on the other hand had absolutely nothing.

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As
Nothing new, but the "default" setting for 3e was Greyhawk, the original RPG gaming world that's been around since the 1970s. As I stated above, I haven't followed gaming closely and have played 3e/3.5e/PF as much as 4e, but I knew Greyhawk was the default setting for 3e and didn't know Nentir Vale was for 4e. I thought it was just "Points of Light" that could be placed in nearly any world.

delericho said:

Nitpick: it was Campbell, who was Scottish, the father of WW's friend Hamish.

That's "Braveheart", of course, which bears about as much resemblance to actual history as D&D injuries and healing (any edition) does to reality.

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Oh come on, why quibble about little things like the Battle of Stirling Bridge not having, umm, a bridge in it?

Bluenose said:

To be more precise, William Wallace as a Warlord, some Irish guy who lost a hand, and, "He didn't shout his hand back on." Followed by some sniggering.

To which the obvious response remains, "He didn't sleep it back on either."

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True, but two wrongs don't make a right.