D&D 5E Monte Cook working on 5E?

[Grydan]

A Christmas release (in any year) strikes me as spectacularly unlikely. Any unexpected delays make you miss the holiday season altogether, and launch in the post-holiday window when a significant portion of the potential audience is without disposable income.

Following the 4E model of announcing at GenCon, and releasing at GenCon the subsequent year would make more sense. Or, announce at DDXP and release at GenCon, if you want a shorter "lame duck" period.

(Not that I think we're going to see an announcement or release in 2012.)

 

[Stormonu]

I think I'm like several other grognard's in that we've been spoiled with D&D's slow turnover in the past (about 10 years for 1E & 2E, 8 years for the 3.X series). I think there has been in the past a lot of pride that D&D changed it's base rules so slowly - even though there's always been a subsection that's gotten disgusted and moved on to other games due to this preponderance to "catch up with modern RPG design".

In contrast, several RPG's that have only been out since the late 80's or 90's are in their 5th or so edition already, putting them in a turnaround about every 5 years or so.

Do I think the rumor is true? Sure do, moving Mearls to another position and hiring on Monte sounds to me like a gear up towards a new iteration of D&D - whether it's another revision of 4E or actual 5E coming down the road, say around late 2013 or 2014, whichever would put 5E being the "game of choice" for Gencon on D&D's 40th birthday.

 

[Dausuul]

I would be surprised if they weren't working on 5E. Reading between the lines of Mearls's Legends & Lore posts, I think 4E has not been the success WotC hoped for. The 4E/Pathfinder split has to have been a nasty surprise. Essentials was an attempt to heal that rift without abandoning 4E; it has pretty clearly failed*.

The only possible hope of reuniting the community is 5E. So Mike Mearls and Monte Cook are reaching out to the community in hopes of figuring out what would be required to thread the needle--appeal to both sides. I think their task is less hopeless than it seems. Pathfinder players don't seem to have much objection to the goals of 4E, only to the means chosen to get there. 4E players care about achieving 4E's goals, but would be open to other means that achieved them equally well.

For example: 4E introduced healing surges to reduce dependence on clerics and magical healing. From what I've seen, Pathfinder players are fine with reducing cleric-dependence but don't like healing surges. 4E players would be okay with getting rid of healing surges as long as they didn't go back to cleric-dependence.

Of course, there is a contingent of Pathfinder/3.5E players who are simply content with the system they have and don't want their library of 3.5E material invalidated. Those folks really are beyond the reach of a new system. But others might be open to moving on, if they had something more to their liking to move on to.

[size=-2]*I thought Essentials was brilliant, I love it to death, but I seem to be about the only one. Other 4E players are lukewarm to negative, and Pathfinder players see it as just more of the 4E they didn't want in the first place.[/size]

 

[Mark CMG]

A Christmas release (in any year) strikes me as spectacularly unlikely. Any unexpected delays make you miss the holiday season altogether, and launch in the post-holiday window when a significant portion of the potential audience is without disposable income.

Following the 4E model of announcing at GenCon, and releasing at GenCon the subsequent year would make more sense. Or, announce at DDXP and release at GenCon, if you want a shorter "lame duck" period.

They released 3.5E and 4E in June. I suspect we'll see a 2012 Gencon announcement followed by marketing hype through a June 2013 release.

 

[Mercurius]

[MENTION=10479]Mark CMG[/MENTION] - that would be my guess as well. See, we can agree on some things ;-).

As for whether or not WotC is working on 5E, of course they are. They started working on 5E as soon as 4E was sent to the presses. Now whether or not they are actively working on it, that's a different matter. I would agree with whoever said that they probably started doing so--if only in Mike Mearls grey matter soup and possibly brainstorming sessions--back around the time Essentials came out, or shortly thereafter. So about a year maybe?

My guess is that Mearls and his close group of brainstormers came up with a wish-list of designers and then approached Monte Cook, who agreed and was hired. With his hiring I'm thinking 5E design is going into high gear. A 2012 GenCon announcement seems about right, although we might start hearing deliberately leaked rumors in a few months and may even get an official announcement in early 2012, with possible alpha playtesting later in the year, and a beta release at GenCon, a limited run Beta 5E Players Handbook for GenCon folks only.

Then you'd have another six months of playtesting and fine-tuning, with a June, 2013 release. (Of course at that point we'll be in the next Mayan baktun, so who knows what sort of format 5E will be released in ).

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I am not certain how much a 5e would help WotC at this point.

I won't say 'they are dead to me', or even 'I'm done with them', but I will say that I am happy with Pathfinder right now, and I don't expect that to change in the next few years.

I am certain that there are plenty of folks who feel exactly the same way about 4e - they are happy with it, and will still be happy with it in two years time. I am willing to believe that it might well be a majority of the 4e fans.

Would shortening the cycle help WotC?

*EDIT* To be clear - I mean at this point, not 'for the foreseeable future'. That maybe they would be better off waiting a while longer.

The Auld Grump

 

[Grydan]

They released 3.5E and 4E in June. I suspect we'll see a 2012 Gencon announcement followed by marketing hype through a June 2013 release.

You're right, my memory played a trick on me. Should have said "a bit before GenCon" rather than "at GenCon".

 

[Mark CMG]

You're right, my memory played a trick on me. Should have said "a bit before GenCon" rather than "at GenCon".

You're right in spirit, anyway, as I think the idea is to take advantage of the summer/convention season of which Gencon is still the crown jewel.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Really, though, I can see thinking that 4e wasn't the groundbreaking success they thought it would be, but I'm not sure why people think that must mean 5e is the answer. Given that it's true, last time they made a new edition
they fractured the fan base and created major competitor. I don't see them leaping to that as the first solution.

4e was a big change that alienated a good chunk of their previous audience. They have tried essentials as well with again mixed success for what would seem a good product. It would not surprise me with the leaving of Bill Slavicsek if the emergency 5e button was not pressed at that point.

They opened up a lot of design space with the release of essentials, I think they're going to use it for awhile. I suspect that what we're going to see in the next two years is player splats, the occasional setting material, and the return of Unearthed Arcana. It'd be a good place to supply variant rules addressing various complaints with 4e, as well as a fertile testing ground for all these ideas about design Mearls and Cook are thinking up.

And would not the irony be if having pushed the 5e button, WotC start hitting some home runs with essentials and further products over the next two years so that when they DO release 5e they end up competing more with their own product again, as much as they are now with Pathfinder.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Nikosandros]

They released 3.5E and 4E in June. I suspect we'll see a 2012 Gencon announcement followed by marketing hype through a June 2013 release.

If they are indeed gearing up for the next "revision", I still think that 2014 would make a lot of sense, for the whole 40th anniversary thing...