D&D 5E Why I Think D&DN is In Trouble

[Halivar]

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.

Having come into 3E with no prior experience in roleplaying, I was not aware of the existence of Greyhawk until well into that edition's cycle. In fact, the only ties the core books have to Greyhawk are the pantheon list and the proper possessives on some of the spell names. Contrast with 4E, where many of Nentir Vale's features were assumed in places like the Shadowfel and the Feywild.

Note that I prefer the setting agnosticism of 3E. Fitting 4E into my homebrew worlds required some shoehorning of the two other planes.

 

[TerraDave]

The interwebs creating an appearance of apathy and negativity? Shocking! Absolutely shocking!

We have a public playtest, with well over 100,000 participants, and we can see all the changes actually incorporated as the playtest goes along. And it goes for a really long time. And we have this and all these other threads over this whole time across the internet about it.

Yep, cynical pointless stunt that nobody cares about.

Like I said, shocking.

 

[dmccoy1693]

"He didn't shout his hand back on." Mike Mearls discussing William Wallace, some Irish guy, and martial healing/restoration of hit points.

"It also didn't get slept back on." Me, responding.

If you have the feeling that no-one from WotC is saying anything that 4e players could possibly be offended by, that's Exhibit A for you to consider.

Missed that one. Is it daily occurrence or a weekly occurrence or a one time thing? During the 3e-> 4e transition it was an almost daily occurrence that lasted for months. The specific staffer I was referencing had a weekly column where she would never miss a chance to slam 3e. Never. And she was not alone. It was actually a notable event when there was a day where someone at Wizards did not slam 3e.

 

[dmccoy1693]

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.

Two different people referencing the same staffer saying the same thing tells me this is both a notable and rare event. Leading me to believe this is nothing like the 3e-4e transition.

Mind you, I may be wrong, I have not been paying attention to the edition wars this time around.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Missed that one. Is it daily occurrence or a weekly occurrence or a one time thing? During the 3e-> 4e transition it was an almost daily occurrence that lasted for months. The specific staffer I was referencing had a weekly column where she would never miss a chance to slam 3e. Never. And she was not alone. It was actually a notable event when there was a day where someone at Wizards did not slam 3e.

About weekly for the duration of the playtest. That was the obvious one, but there have been plenty of them. More common than the direct slams are the attempts to ignore 4e when 4e solved the problems they are talking about.

Who was this staffer you're talking about?

 

[NewJeffCT]

Having come into 3E with no prior experience in roleplaying, I was not aware of the existence of Greyhawk until well into that edition's cycle. In fact, the only ties the core books have to Greyhawk are the pantheon list and the proper possessives on some of the spell names. Contrast with 4E, where many of Nentir Vale's features were assumed in places like the Shadowfel and the Feywild.

Note that I prefer the setting agnosticism of 3E. Fitting 4E into my homebrew worlds required some shoehorning of the two other planes.

good point, but for those of us who grew up gaming with Basic, 1e or 2e, Greyhawk was very familiar to me.

I agree on preferring 3E's setting agnosticism, as just the cosmology change was a good amount of work for people who used Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, 3rd Party settings, homebrew worlds, etc.

 

[dmccoy1693]

About weekly for the duration of the playtest. That was the obvious one, but there have been plenty of them. More common than the direct slams are the attempts to ignore 4e when 4e solved the problems they are talking about.

Who was this staffer you're talking about?

Ignoring 4e is far different than saying, "We need a new edition because grapple does not work well," on a daily basis for 6+ months.

I'm not naming names. The person, to the best of my knowledge, still works there. Calling out of the person for past actions long forgotten by most is unnecessary.

 

[Halivar]

More common than the direct slams are the attempts to ignore 4e when 4e solved the problems they are talking about.

This was common from Monte Cook. He would ask questions like, "How should we solve X?" and the response was, "Did this guy even pick up a 4E PHB and read it?" Don't ask me for specifics. This was a year ago and my Google-fu is weak.

 

[Bluenose]

Two different people referencing the same staffer saying the same thing tells me this is both a notable and rare event. Leading me to believe this is nothing like the 3e-4e transition.

Mind you, I may be wrong, I have not been paying attention to the edition wars this time around.

The identical thread on the WotC boards had that reference in it. It's hardly a surprise it's in people's minds.

Perhaps I should go with Monte Cook inventing something he called "Passive Perception".

 

[dmccoy1693]

This was common from Monte Cook. He would ask questions like, "How should we solve X?" and the response was, "Did this guy even pick up a 4E PHB and read it?"

I could see that.