D&D 5E I think we can safely say that 5E is a success, but will it lead to a new Golden Era?

DaveMage · Aug 11, 2014

I think 5E will be a success, but a golden era? Nah. Those days are gone.

The most impressive thing to me about 5E is that I think every D&D player - regardless of favorite edition - will be able to recognize this as a game they can play, just from playing that other edition.

Granted, we haven't seen all the books yet, but as I've said elsewhere, this edition looks like a great link between BECMI/1E/2E and 3.xE/4E. Indeed, it seems like what 3rd edition should have been (a more natural progression from 2E than 3E was).

I remember something mearls posted after 4E was released which I think gives this edition so much better appeal. He said he read all the reviews after 4E released. Both positive and negative. It's likely he made mental (if not actual) notes during that time about what worked and what appealed to people (and what didn't). I don't know how 5E will roll out (from a product pace), but hopefully they will be able to hold to a lighter release schedule and not just make 5E yet another bump on the WotC 3-to-5-year edition treadmill.

Ranes · Aug 11, 2014

Mercurius said:
A creative and community success, that is. I know, it is early, but the feedback on the Starter Set, Basic Rules, and Player's Handbook has been overwhelmingly positive, so much so that the negative views really stand out. We still need to see more reviews and give the community a couple months with the Player's Handbook, but so far I think 5E is quite a success with the fan base, and I just can't imagine anything like the debacle that we had with 4E.

While the full 5e core (folks, don’t flame me; you know what I mean) have yet to appear, I think you have the right of it. From the goodwill and publicity generated by the open play test, to the free basic rules, to the first impressions of the PHB, I think the launch of 5e is going as well as anyone at WotC could have dared to hope. And that makes me happy for current and future players.

Mercurius said:
Here’s the "but" from the thread title (which is really more of a "What if"). What if it is a roaring success with the existing fan-base but isn't a massive financial one? In other words, what if the Mearls Plan doesn't succeed and the brand doesn't blow up with a massive new generation of players storming the gates to roll their first d20? What if none or few of the legendary "20 million" D&D boomers from the 80s doesn't come back?

I think the kind of success you are framing here is unlikely. I simply think the ship has sailed. Gold and silver ages have gone. The world has moved on. A pen-and-paper system is and will forever be a niche product now. The sales curve of 5 may exceed that of 4, perhaps even 3, but it’s an inexorably downward spiral in the long term. One day, an entirely online edition (which, I think, could and should have been the focus of 5) might enjoy a renaissance - and I hope it will - but the traditional format, if we can refer to books as that, will never, ever match the success the game enjoyed in the late seventies and early eighties.

However, I don’t think the publishers expect otherwise.

Mercurius said:
I would imagine that D&D would continue as is indefinitely, although wouldn't expand in any way. We'd see a more moderate roll out of products, perhaps akin to the first few years of Pathfinder - a new hardcover two or three times a year, a new adventure once a month or two with the occasional setting supplement. In other words, business as usual and what one would have expected with 5E, but without the fulfillment of the promised vision of a new golden era of a diversified D&D brand. D&D would remain what it has been since the end of the 80s boom, a niche hobby with moderate ups and downs in creativity and financial success.

Yes, probably, but I don’t think this is the whole picture. Before I get on to why…

Mercurius said:
I don't have a problem with that and, in a way, think creative vitality is better retained with a smaller, or moderate sized pie. In other words, while it isn't an absolute rule, there seems to be a common inverse relationship between financial success and creative vitality in many artistic domains.

You can argue the relationship between commercial success and artistic vitality till the cows haven’t just come home, they've emptied your humidor and finished off the Cognac. But a new golden age might not be predicated on sales of 5e books. In fact, I doubt such a thing could be based on sales of any edition now. It might, however, arise from the credibility to be had from an edition that was critically regarded beyond the realm of the fan base of the essential product, a credibility that comes from those who write, “I’m not the target audience for any kind of RPG but this is the high watermark.” That will score you film rights, if it's widespread enough. That will get you an angle that’ll say to Hollywood, “We can sell this mainstream.” And when that happens, you can forget the utterly risible D&D movies of the past and even the inherent cheesiness of D&D per se. Excuse me, we live in an era in which GI Joe and Transformers pull in multi-billion dollar audiences.

Given time and an angle, Hollywood can and does sell us anything and, when they do it well, we love it. Worse ideas than D&D have had their moment in the Sun, and the ramifications of that are tremendous.

Where were we?

Mercurius said:
That said, I would still be curious what a new, golden era of D&D would be like.

A digitally-based product, complete with virtual table and with a free core, picking up millions of people unencumbered by edition wars and lead miniatures? That’s probably just the tip of the geekberg.

Mercurius said:
I think the key is movies. It is the only media format that reaches beyond the "geek ghetto." Take my very non-geek wife. She has no idea what World of Warcraft is, who Drizzt or Elminster are, or what a d20 is. But she could probably name a half a dozen X-Men, knows what a Jedi Knight is, and which franchise the starship Enterprise is from.

I’ve got news for you. Your better half is a geek. She’s just not a D&D or pen-and-paper gamer geek. I agree though, at least as far as the near future goes; movies are hugely important. But they won’t go into production out of a vacuum either. We need an environment that begs for exploitation. A good edition helps, sure. So does good press and an accommodation of people living in a digital try-it-for-free age, something 5e goes some way to addressing.

Mercurius said:
Imagine if there could be D&D movies with similar production and creative values as the Marvel universe or Star Wars or Star Trek movies. The few D&D movies we've seen so far have done nothing to enrich the brand; if anything, they have turned some potential players away (I remember seeing the first one in the theater back when it came out in 2000. One of the guys I went with, a very hipster artist who used to play D&D in high school, was so embarassed that I think it snuffed out any thought of him ever playing again). But I don't think it is a foregone conclusion that "D&D" and "live action movie" is inherently doomed to artistic limbo.

Yep. Yep. Yep. Exactly.

Mercurius said:
I think the best chance D&D has of a creative movie is something epic, a Big Story. What comes most immediately to mind is the Dragonlance Chronicles. Another could be Icewind Dale (I hate to say it, but if done well Drizzt could make an impact on the big screen). Or perhaps something new.

Or a mix of all of the above. But I put it to you that none of these things stand a chance on their own and even combined; they require the right environment and insight.

Mercurius said:
This post is admittedly meandering - I just had some thoughts that I am hoping will encourage conversation. Take whatever element of the above, or whatever comes to you, and run with it.

Thank you for them. That’s what I’ve done. Hope it’s piqued your interest.

Edit: I hate semi-colons but there's a time and a place, and I missed one.

Tony Vargas · Aug 11, 2014

Zardnaar said:
Ryan Dancey gave the figure of 25-30 million a year circa 2006

In 2006, the whole RPG industry /might/ have flirted with the lower limit of that range, maybe (there are no reliable numbers, but guesses tended to be 20 million or so). What Dancey was talking about was the /potential/ of the D&D IP as a business unit (so, everything, not just D&D, and going forward, not right then), in contrast to what WotC was promising to Hasbro, which was 50-100 million.

I doubt the industry has grown a lot in the ensuing years - with D&D all but off the market for two of them, it's probably shrunk. Pathfinder 12 mil was doubtless the lion's share.

With 5e finally out, that should change.

prosfilaes · Aug 11, 2014

Tony Vargas said:
The things that appeal to long-time players - counter-intuitive sacred cows like Vancian casting, armor that deflects hits, clerical healing, dungeon-crawling, and a host of others - do, indeed, make it hard for new players to 'get' the game.

So the concept of a holy man who walks around touching people and healing them is counter-intuitive? How many people in the modern world has any real intuition of how armor works? It certainly seems like plate mail would cause an arrow or sword to bounce off, and any real thought is going to lead you back to weapon-type versus armor tables and even worse complexity.

Even Vancian casting and dungeon-crawling aren't so much counter-intuitive as specific to a certain genre of fantasy. Dungeon crawling won't be surprising to anyone who's played any of a variety of video games; Mario and Link have spent a lot of time underground, and I believe a number of WoW quests are various dungeon like structures.

D&D is really quite counter-intuitive and complicated, even in it's more "rules-lite" forms.

Compared to most other RPGs? Something like Gonnerman's Basic Fantasy RPG would rank among the simplest RPGs on my shelf. I certainly wouldn't rank D&D 4 low on the complexity table. The easiest thing to teach is "when it's your turn, you get to move your piece up to six squares, or twelve if you're not attacking and then you roll that die there, and add that number there on your sheet to attack." It's quite hard to understand when you have multiple options and some of them you can only use a limited number of times (which provokes a complex calculation of whether you really need it right now and whether your party and your DM will give you another chance to use it).

Tony Vargas · Aug 11, 2014

prosfilaes said:
So the concept of a holy man who walks around touching people and healing them is counter-intuitive?

A heavily-armored holy man standing behind the fighter and healing him while he fights, and occassionally using a mace, himself? A white-robed healer who makes an appearance in a scene to help the hero on his way, sure. A heal-bot in for the whole adventure, not so much.

How many people in the modern world has any real intuition of how armor works?

Just the nerdy types who might be interested in D&D.

It certainly seems like plate mail would cause an arrow or sword to bounce off,

Right, but if you're not already used to D&D, "bounced off" is synonymous with "can't hurt you," not "missed this time, but might do full damage next time."

Even Vancian casting and dungeon-crawling aren't so much counter-intuitive as specific to a certain genre of fantasy.

Vance's Dying Earth defines a sub-genre of science-fiction, not fantasy, and the D&D style of dungeon-crawling is... more pragmatic... than you'd find in any fantasy sub-genre. So the "certain genre of fantasy" you're talking about is prettymuch just D&D, which, by definition, new players are going to be unfamiliar with.

It's quite hard to understand when you have multiple options and some of them you can only use a limited number of times (which provokes a complex calculation of whether you really need it right now and whether your party and your DM will give you another chance to use it).

Nod. 'Dailies' are a barrier to accessibility on that level. "Why only once /a day/?" Confuses everyone at first, part of the problem with Vancian. OTOH, as a game mechanic, limited resources are likely familiar from board & card games, and /once/ is easier to grasp than 'how many times did you memorize it?'

The key, though, is whether such resources are clearly presented. Classic D&D and 5e, with varied resource models, are harder to absorb - as well as harder to balance, an issue when it comes to giving new players that positive first experience - and a group of new players can't re-enforce eachother's learning experience when the classes are mechanically inconsistent.

pemerton · Aug 12, 2014

Tony Vargas said:
I suppose it's not inconceivable that D&D could go mainstream the way Marvel has - but, y'know, Stan Lee spent a lifetime making that happen, with many failures and false starts in the movie biz. Think about how much and for how long Marvel heroes were on TV, for instance.

This is an important point. But it also runs both ways, I think.

That is, Marvel had a lot of goes, and a lot of them were bad: I remember a Spider Man movie from when I was a boy (apparently in the US the 1977 film went straight-to-TV). The Hulk TV show was pretty dodgy. I've seen a bad Punisher movie on TV (was it released cinematically?). I personally also think the Ang Lee Hulk movie was pretty bad, although Rotten Tomatoes doesn't agree.

I think this shows it's possible to come back from bad movies and other media pretty quickly. The evidence doesn't suggest that a character or "franchise" will be permanently weighed down by its past associations.

Mercurius said:
As I said up-thread, I'm not just talking about initial (or even only long-term) financial success, but creative and community success which should but doesn't always translate into financial success. As far as I can tell, 5E is showing signs of being a stronger success in the community than 4E was at the same point.

<snip>

it is more palatable to a wider range of D&D players, especially the long-time people that were turned off by the "Warcrafty" qualities of 4E.

This is the sort of analysis that I think has very limited explanatory value.

I mean, on this thread alone we have multiple long-time D&D players - [MENTION=56051]Raith5[/MENTION], [MENTION=9053]SteveC[/MENTION], for instance - expressing a degree of doubt over whether 5e is a game they want to play. And there are plenty of other long-time D&D players who post regularly on ENworld who expres similar concerns. But you seem to be discounting that, for whatever reason.

Similarly references to the "Warcrafty" quaities of 4e. That's like referring to the "Diablo-y" qualities of 3E ie basically meaningless. If an issue with 4e was mechanically rationed abilities for martial characters, let's describe it more accurately so we can actually identify the relevant design issues. Or, if the issue with 4e was that powers were laid out in coloured boxes, rather than the traditional black-on-white text of a D&D spell or magic item description, then let's describe it more accurately so we can discuss the relevant layout issue.

prosfilaes · Aug 12, 2014

Tony Vargas said:
Just the nerdy types who might be interested in D&D. Right, but if you're not already used to D&D, "bounced off" is synonymous with "can't hurt you," not "missed this time, but might do full damage next time."

So you're talking about people who have a familiarity with armor but who don't understand that a sword can bounce off one time but hit where the armor doesn't protect as well the next? I don't believe that person exists, and I believe the people who have a familiarity with armor--that is, SCA members--are a smaller minority then D&D players. Besides which, you haven't convinced me that AC is wrong in a sense that any rule that characterizes armor by one number is better.

the D&D style of dungeon-crawling is... more pragmatic... than you'd find in any fantasy sub-genre. So the "certain genre of fantasy" you're talking about is prettymuch just D&D, which, by definition, new players are going to be unfamiliar with.

Some editions of the Legend of Zelda have sold 6 million copies. That's the D&D style of dungeon crawling, right there. Running around in dungeons killing things and taking their loot is a very popular form of video game, and not unheard of in the boardgaming community.

"Why only once /a day/?" Confuses everyone at first, part of the problem with Vancian.

Everyone who plays a character with dailies is going to be forced to make complicated tactical decisions. It may get easier later, but it's always a complexity. Unless you choose a character without dailies... which D&D 4 doesn't have, and systems with Vancian magic generally do have.

a group of new players can't re-enforce eachother's learning experience when the classes are mechanically inconsistent.

And a group of players can't have easy to play characters for the new players and people who don't want to deal with it and complex characters for people who do want to deal with it, if the classes are all mechanical copies of each other.

pkt77242 · Aug 12, 2014

I don't see why the the DragonLance Chronicles couldn't be made into a good profitable movie or 3+ season show on a channel like HBO or Showtime. Back when the books came out there were many things that would have gotten in the way but advancements in CGI should help overcome many of the issues.

Dragons: Done the Hobbit series (Smaug) and in GoT.
Draconians: See above but also the Orcs from LoTR and Hobbit
Lord Soth: See the Nazguls (LoTR), Dementors (Harry Potter) and even the Whitewalkers from GoT.
Magic: Harry Potter and LoTR have it and in reality there is very little magic in the books.

The books have sold millions of copies around the world (6 million+ of which are US and UK) so there is a built in fan base as well. I am sure that there is other issues that I haven't thought of but I think that this could be a winning idea for WoTC.

prosfilaes · Aug 12, 2014

pkt77242 said:
The books have sold millions of copies around the world (6 million+ of which are US and UK) so there is a built in fan base as well. I am sure that there is other issues that I haven't thought of but I think that this could be a winning idea for WoTC.

There's a bit of a built in fan base, but I wouldn't lean on that too much. From the combined catalogs of LibraryThing members, Harry Potter is the 1st through 7th most common books, and the Hobbit is 8th. Game of Thrones wasn't nearly so high, but it was still 167 before the TV series started. Dragons of Autumn Twilight is about 1,500. It's currently 11th in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Gaming > Dungeons & Dragons, behind the 3.5, 4 and 5e PHBs. Its fan base is not going to float it on its own.

Haffrung · Aug 12, 2014

The Marvel IP is so valuable because of the hundreds of characters that have some profile in pop culture (or at least geek culture). They're what Marvel has to offer the movie industry. Hollywood is perfectly capable of coming up with its own stories and action sequences (which for the most part are not lifted from the comics).

D&D doesn't have that. With the possible exception of Drizz't, D&D does not offer any familiar characters that could give a D&D movie the profile that Iron-Man, Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Thor have given their Marvel movie franchises.

D&D 5E I think we can safely say that 5E is a success, but will it lead to a new Golden Era?

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