Random Impressions:
Tepid applause at first mention of D&D Next, which surprised me given this was GenCon and presumably a pro-D&D/WotC crowd in the room.
It was a Keynote, not a roundtable, so Teleprompter didn’t bother me when it was an individual speaker.
Sorry, fans don’t control the brand. Although, it’s a clever phrase to suggest that they do.
Also, D&D does not = the total RPG market. I know that they wish it did, but D&D isn’t significant for the entire RPG community. Once upon a time, it was. Sometime in the future, it may be again, but the 800 lb. gorilla has been shedding some pounds for the last few years. D&D Next isn’t going to be relevant/significant to every RPGer.
The contrast between the tone for 5e & 4e is striking. Almost breathtaking.
Kevin Kulp
Minor quibble – saying it’s been a “joy” to watch the fan community evolve over the last few years is a very rose-colored view of it. I’m not doubting Kevin’s view of it, I just don’t think it’s an objective view. ENWorld is not the forum of idea-exchange it once was. Objectively, there’s more debate, argument, and greater lack of civility than there was when Piratecat’s group playtested 3e. I know what drew me to ENWorld back in the day. It’s in much shorter supply and I don’t come here nearly as much as I once did. YMMV.
Mearls Intro: Clearly a fan of the D&D Experience & passionate about the game, which is what I expected. Glad to hear him acknowledge that the rules aren’t the focus of the experience.
They stopped short of labeling 4e as the root of D&D’s current ills and instead spoke in generalities like “for too long…”. However, it’s clear that 4e was the “guilty edition” with respect to the “where things went wrong”. I’m NOT saying other editions didn’t have their problems, however 4e apparently hit a threshold of pain that WotC couldn’t ignore. Again, compare the tone of the 4e announcement & marketing with the tone of the guys in this panel – it’s night vs. day. Also, if SpellPlague/4e wasn’t a mistake, why do you need The Sundering to “right the Realms” (Greenwood’s words)?
“New settings, new stories”…. followed by… more Forgotten Realms and promises to not ignore their “other settings”. Are those brand new settings? Are we re-treading other established settings? Can they really deliver on the “bringing them to life in ways that’s never been done before”? Between the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, and, dare I say it – Golarion, that’s a pretty darn big promise… And honestly, the FR have gone through so much development & campaign-shattering changes, I scratch my head at the “shaking the dust off” comment. The dust rarely settles in the FR.
An edition for all fans – good to shoot for the brass ring.
Return of electronic products sounds very promising. Devil is in the details, but cautiously optimistic.
Not sure what to make of “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” getting more applause than “D&D Next” did at the beginning of the keynote…
Salvatore got almost no applause. Kemp, Evans, Byers, Denning, & Greenwood got more. Perhaps just because they were present in the room & I’m not making any statement on the authors. I always enjoyed Salvatore more than Greenwood. It was just something that I noticed.
Dr’zzt gets applause, Elminster, tiefling, Kale, Kenrick, Mervalde gets none. Again, just an observation. My personal knee-jerk reaction was to roll my eyes at Greenwood’s overdramatic narration of the script about the characters in each of the books. I get it, the guy fancies himself a storyteller above all else. His style, verbal or written, just doesn’t do it for me. At all.
“Get back to roots, get back to basics, draw the fans back…” (Salvatore talking during the Realms video)
Kudos to Kevin for acknowledging & introducing the Realms-Shaking-Event weariness, even if it was likely a green-lit topic in advance. The fact that Mearls can say “Realms-Shaking Event of the Year” with a straight face and without irony speaks to how big a problem it’s become. I’m not convinced that they will execute on turning the focus to D&D players versus Realms iconics (I can’t see Salvatore or Greenwood changing the way they do things). The 2 FR adventures sounds too much like “Here, you’re actions are relevant… NOW” and then back to normal. For another analogy, this is WotC’s Vote-whether-to-kill-Robin poll…
Kudos for citing magic systems as examples of how to make the game your own & support modularity. The flip side, is that there’s no way that doing so increases “ease of play”.
Final Impressions:
1. Kudos to WotC for wanting to make a great game and recognizing that there were significant mistakes made in the past.
2. D&DNext/5e will be evolving for some time if I take everything stated at face value. It’s The Wanderer’s Journey rather than a “Follow the Treasure Map”. They have an idea filled with good intentions. The road is being laid as they go along.
3. I’m still not seeing anything to steer me away from Pathfinder. For all the talk about simplicity and modularity, it doesn’t appear to be that much simpler, I don’t need an old-school itch scratched, and Pathfinder is firing on all cylinders for me.
4. Not a single question, comment, or reference to the elephant in the room: OGL/GSL/3P support. I suspect that bodes ill for it. That’s a premature conclusion, but for gamers, I think that was just as interesting a topic as Realms-novels. If there was one criticism I had for PirateCat, this would be it, but I’m guessing that was WotC’s call, not his.
5. Underwhelmed by the continued retread of old material. Yes, the FR is a world and world’s change. However, how many versions of Waterdeep, Neverwinter, Cormyr, and Menzoberranzan does one need? So what level is Dr’zzt THIS time? Does Salvatore even know? I doubt it. He’s at whatever level the plot needs him to be. Same goes for Elminster. For all the talk about “getting it right”, there’s a big helping of “playing it safe”. So once again, we’ve got a rewrite of game mechanics & the potential re-tread on the setting/adventure side.
6. Adventures. The FR adventures sound like an interesting way of engaging the players in the Edition-Transition stage. However, for all the talk about the future of D&D Next, next to a 3rd-party license, this was the other gaping hole. Will D&DNext/5e provide better adventure support?
7. Random WTF thought: Given the positive attitudes & desire to “right the wrongs”, what really drove Monte Cook to exit WotC? ‘Cause this seems like a design environment he’d love. And no, Numenera on its own doesn’t rise to that level, IMO. Numenera could have sat on the back burner another year or been done on the side.
If you’re a fan of D&D Next/5e thus far, I think there’s a lot to be hopeful for. If you and D&D have parted ways, I see WotC making some sincere overtures to win you back but few actual enticements aside from the D&D brand to do so. So it appears that the Developers have their act together, can WotC collectively get their minds right to save/restore/preserve D&D? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
