D&D 5E D&DN going down the wrong path for everyone.

hollowleg said:

Honestly I think it would be preferable to provide support for multiple lines. D&D once had Basic and Advanced branches, so it's not historically unprecedented. Wizards would garner more goodwill from the fanbases of previous editions by putting out new content for several editions concurrently than trying for a grand unification scheme, IMO.

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Well, set aside the fact that WotC's reprinted 1e, 2e, and 3e, and is offering PDF (and some reprinted) products from over D&D's history, D&D and AD&D were not as distinct as 2e and 3e are, or even 3e and 4e. The products were essentially interchangable. The basic, core rules were the same: attributes worked the same, saves worked the same, the combat systems worked the same. People bought AD&D adventures for the D&D games, and probably as many or more AD&D players played through the B-series as D&D players did. The big difference between the lines was optional subsystems.

In effect it was pretty much like what Mearls is suggesting for Next. You had your simple core that served as a gateway game, and then you had an advanced version with various options if you wanted more variety, or more complex play. For Next, though, the problem is much larger, since they are trying to account for all 5 or 6 versions of D&D. Once they do that, though, they can release material that has much more cross-over appeal.

Jeff Carlsen said:

But I just want a version of D&D that is familiar, not too complicated, allows me to realize a wide array of characters, and is fun to play.

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I have been feeling the same... Older editions feel to me familiar and simple, but not flexible enough. 3e and its variations feel familiar and flexible but not simple. 4e felt flexible and simple but not familiar. I want an edition that feels enough all 3 to me!

delericho said:

Not only does it need to be an improvement, it needs to be "better enough" to overcome the inertia of people who are mostly happy with what they have. Speaking for myself, that's exactly why I didn't move to Pathfinder - on balance, I felt it was an improvement over 3.5e, but it's just not "better enough" to make up for the sacrifice of the system mastery I've built over the years.

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Definitely. I didn't even move to 3.5 because of this reason (or more precisely, I moved to 3.5 using the SRD only, then decided to roll back to 3.0 so that I would not have had to re-buy the material).

The big blocker for me to run 3e is the required system mastery and related long preparation times. If I had all the time I wanted, I'd be still playing 3e, but I don't, so for me the necessary improvement I need from 5e is seriously reducing the need for system mastery and DM preparation efforts. But it has to do that without sacrificing neither flexibility nor tradition (and here is mostly where 4e failed to win me), otherwise if I had to give up flexibility I'd rather just play some free retroclones of BECMI.

Iosue said:

In effect it was pretty much like what Mearls is suggesting for Next. You had your simple core that served as a gateway game, and then you had an advanced version with various options if you wanted more variety, or more complex play. For Next, though, the problem is much larger, since they are trying to account for all 5 or 6 versions of D&D. Once they do that, though, they can release material that has much more cross-over appeal.

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The question that needs to be considered at this point in the discussion is: Is cross-over appeal reasoning enough to constitute a new version altogether? To draw a seldom used quote from Big Trouble in Little China: "We take what we want and leave the rest. Just like your salad bar."

This question arises to me as I am preparing for a 1E session and wishing I could run a cleric with a magic weapon that subdues (3E?). It should be well within the powers of a capable DM to make that work. Why? Because the foundation of D&D is based upon the premise that the DM is the "...creator and ultimate authority in your respective game." {AD&D 1E Preface, sentence #2, -G.G.}

I feel that problems come from our need for assurance in finding a reference in this book or that, and going with that knowledge as guide to proceed. And one step worse than this would be to say that said information is not allowed, since it is not in the version of the game that we are playing.

Whether or not D&DN is a culmination of the BEST bits and pieces of its predecessors is not known to me. My suggestion to the DM of any system would be to use or ignore whatever suits your taste. And not to condemn an entire system based on the presence or absence of rigid rules. And whatever you do, don't wait for the printers of said game to make those editing decisions for you and your imagination. My hope would be that D&DN would offer new ideas rather than consolidate old ones.

Take what you want, and leave the rest. Cheers!

Isawa Hochiu said:

The question that needs to be considered at this point in the discussion is: Is cross-over appeal reasoning enough to constitute a new version altogether? To draw a seldom used quote from Big Trouble in Little China: "We take what we want and leave the rest. Just like your salad bar."

This question arises to me as I am preparing for a 1E session and wishing I could run a cleric with a magic weapon that subdues (3E?). It should be well within the powers of a capable DM to make that work. Why? Because the foundation of D&D is based upon the premise that the DM is the "...creator and ultimate authority in your respective game." {AD&D 1E Preface, sentence #2, -G.G.}

<snip>

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Your cleric can strike to subdue with any weapon he wishes in 1e though only certain creatures can be subdued. See DMG pg 67. Alternatively, (and more effectively at low level), consider a small light weapon and Pummeling (DMG 72).

adembroski said:

It's axiomatic that if you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one.

I think D&DN is heading down this road.

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I have been saying this since day one.

The gaming styles and philosophies between the hardcore fans of each edition are so different there is absolutely no way it can meet that goal. The average non internet roaming gamer is not the tough sell here, nor ixs even the " love dnd, all editions, I will try it "kinda fan. it is the 3 hardcore factions of OSR, 3e/PF, and 4e.

The first group does not really care. They have umpteen versions, a thriving hobby gamer marketplace like the days of old, and do not like the direction the game has gone for the past 15 -25 years. They do not want damage dice and surge like mechanics. They do not want Monte cook's , rob heinsoo's or Mike Mearls' DnD, and wotc splat books and piss poor adventures. They want some version of Dave and Gary's game. PDfs and reprints are the way to get them to be customers again. NEXT is not.

It is very apparent here on these boards why the 3e/PF faithful, and 4e hardcore have no or very little faith in NEXT either. Every little thing Mike says gets scrutinized for 25 pages. New packets are torn apart like vultures on a fresh kill. Yes it is the internet, and some people argue about the dumbest stuff that has no bearing on 95% of the game tables out there, but NEXT seems to be alienating the 3e/4e fans who were willing to give NEXT the benefit of the doubt.

Frankly, the reasons do not matter...the D&D audience has become increasingly fragmented since the late 1980s. 2 years of playtest will never fix this. It is just a natural evolution of the hobby.

I should add, I am a reluctant fan of NEXT and see things I really like about it. I would have no problem with it at my table. But the best things about NEXT for me are easily transferrable to my OD&D game, and I have done so with good success. I do not have an real reason to purchase NEXT as my preferred version with houserules are not a barrier to fun, or are causing issues.

hollowleg said:

Eh, I still think they could appeal to the 4e audience by taking what is core to 4e, keeping it, and cutting down the fat and slowness and huge number of powers and whatnot. Essentials did not go far enough. Make a new 4e, 4e-er than 4e. Performing a fourier transform, if you will.

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You don't think that even if it was a perfect update of 4e that fixed the math and sped up play it would still only reach a portion of the audience of 4e? That many would dismiss it as 4.5 and say they already bought those books?
A retread of an edition will only every capture a portion of the original edition.

Plus, the 4e numbers were not good. They started strong but started sagging quickly. Hence Essentials in the first place. They'd didn't change the entire line and design of the game just for giggles. That was the attempt to save 4e. And it failed so bad it cost the head of the D&D brand his job.
Maybe a different 4e-style product might have worked. But trying that now would be doing the same thing they've done twice before and failed at.

hollowleg said:

Honestly I think it would be preferable to provide support for multiple lines. D&D once had Basic and Advanced branches, so it's not historically unprecedented. Wizards would garner more goodwill from the fanbases of previous editions by putting out new content for several editions concurrently than trying for a grand unification scheme, IMO.

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And TSR hated having two lines, and only started Basic to reduce royalties to Dave Arneson.

Here's a basic principle of book publishing: it's better to sell a high number of one book than medium numbers of two books. If you have one book and you sell 5000 copies you will have made more money than if you sold 3000 copies of two books even though with the later you sold an extra thousand copies.
Books have a high print run cost and there is an extra production cost in the form of art, design, writing, layout and the like. The more books you make the more design costs you have.

If you have two parallel but competing product lines with a simmilar audience you're halving sales of each book, which more than halves profits for each book.

If D&D is going to survive it needs to have a single core book, a set of core products that sell gangbusters that everyone buys and uses. And those profits will subsidize the rest of the product line.

JeffB said:

Frankly, the reasons do not matter...the D&D audience has become increasingly fragmented since the late 1980s. 2 years of playtest will never fix this. It is just a natural evolution of the hobby.

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Good! They'll sell Next books to the rest of us and make money off of us for five years. Then they can go ahead and make 6E. And all you 1E, 2E, 3E, and 4E people can play your own games for as long as you like.

I only wish you all wouldn't keep barging into the EN World threads about the new edition to continually complain about it.

I may be an outlier. I am very excited for Next, but love Pathfinder. The thing is I love Forgotten Realms more than either. I did not like the rules system of 4e, but if the development of the realms was more story driven and less developer driven I might have signed on with 4e. Likewise if they fix the Forgotten Realms with the Sundering like I think they will, I would sign onto Next even if the rules were not as good as PF. The important thing for me is the active support for the world that is my playground.

If they make Forgotten Realms systems neutral as I hope they do, then I will evaluate whether I want to play PF or Next in it. In any case I am happy with the direction Next is going, and I am quite excited about it.