Is it time for 5E?

[Herschel]

Maybe it's the lack of sleep talking but I think it's time to drop the banhammer on 5E threads. They're nothing but PA edition warring.

 

[delericho]

Maybe it's the lack of sleep talking but I think it's time to drop the banhammer on 5E threads. They're nothing but PA edition warring.

The thing is, though, that that's not actually true. While there's been some amount of sniping at 4e from 3e/PF fans, and a certain amount of sniping at 3e/PF by 4e fans, the bulk of the thread has actually been fairly measured discussion of the topic at hand, with what appears to be a strong majority from all sides saying "not yet" to 5e. (In fact, has there been any mod activity on this thread?)

Just in case your post was aimed at mine from this morning (which could be read as "OMG, 4e is becoming a CCG!"), I hope you will accept that that is not my intention. While 4e is not my edition of choice (I stuck with 3.5e), there are a number of things about it that I really like, and it has also highlighted a number of genuine flaws with my preferred edition. I had actually had (have?) real hope that a good 5e might, eventually, come around and blow me away.

Nor, by and large, do I have a problem with what WotC is doing with 4e. I thought Essentials was a very positive step, and although the new Character Builder was a disaster on release, the manner in which they've fixed it up has been extremely impressive.

I do have a problem with the Fortune Cards. But that's a problem with one specific product, and not with 4e as a whole. My post from the morning reflects my fears of where that might lead with any new edition.

 

[M.L. Martin]

No doubt, but we've already got RPGs with collectable-card elements (Gamma World, and the new Fortune Cards for D&D). Suddenly, it looks a whole lot more likely we'll see a much greater emphasis on this with any new edition.

That depends on how well the Gamma World boosters and the Fortune Cards do. I remember the last wave of CCG elements in RPGs--nearly 20 years ago, with Everway and Changeling: The Dreaming. They didn't take, so no one's really returned to the concept since, until now. If the products don't succeed for WotC this time, the concept will probably lie dormant for another decade or two.

 

[Shazman]

If I were Hasbro, I'd reduce WotC's d&d department down to a skeleton crew, which could churn out a small trickle of new products, while re-releasing all the old products(in pdf or print on demand) as a sign of good faith. Then after a few years and a much needed break, they could hire a bunch of old/new guys to make a long awaited 5th edition, which would debut in 2018. More than likely however, the new edition is slowly being worked on for a 2014 40th anniversary date.

They are already operating with a skeleton crew. Why do think they didn't ahve any pre-holiday layoffs in 2010?

 

[GreyLord]

In light of recent events, one wonders what is going to happen to the content of the possibly canceled (or omitted) 4E 2011 titles. In particular, the following titles advertised at Gencon 2010 but which are conspicuously absent from amazon.com or WotC's own online catalog:

(removed or omitted from amazon.com)
- Champions of the Heroic Tier
- Hero Builder's Handbook

(rumored to be removed or absent from WotC's own online catalog)
- Class Compendium: Heroes of Sword and Spell
- Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium

The above titles appear to be crunch heavy rules stuff, both from the DM and players' side.


From a conspiratorial perspective, one could suggest that the content of these shelved/cancelled 2011 4E books, could be rewritten as rules for a 5E D&D.

I believe some of those are not really cancelled, but delayed.

 

[Herschel]

I do have a problem with the Fortune Cards. But that's a problem with one specific product, and not with 4e as a whole. My post from the morning reflects my fears of where that might lead with any new edition.

The Fortune Cards look kind of cool and I'm glad they're experimenting and expanding the game space with optional tools. That said, I'll most likely be skipping them as they're not an element I'm keen to add.

 

[Mercurius]

I believe some of those are not really cancelled, but delayed.

You're probably right but then the question is, why doesn't WotC make a very simple, easy, and painless announcement? This has been their MO for quite some time and one of the reasons they have been (rightly, imo) criticized of poor PR.

So my advice to WotC would be, quite simply: Communicate with your customers! You don't have to tell us your inner corporate secrets, what you have in store for us etc, but just let us know what is going on. It would go a long way towards fostering goodwill between fans and the company. I mean, take one from Paizo.

 

[Diamond Cross]

You realize, of course that by discussing 5e so much you run the risk of encouraging WotC of publishing an actual 5e.

That also means discontinuing support for 4e just like they discontinued 3.5/d20 products.

That will create even more of a schism among the fan base and the customers.

And when will it stop?

Because of crap like constantly talking about 5e, I can see that when and if 5e is actually published, the fans will start discussing a 6e right away and will just go on and on and on and.

So when will it stop?

Please, give it a rest and let 4e be established and supported for a long time before there's even a 5e.

 

[Pour]

So my advice to WotC would be, quite simply: Communicate with your customers! You don't have to tell us your inner corporate secrets, what you have in store for us etc, but just let us know what is going on. It would go a long way towards fostering goodwill between fans and the company. I mean, take one from Paizo.

I think they've been pretty open these passed two months with calendar changes, design philosophies, podcasts, the apology for the e-assassin, increase of fluff to Dragon and Dungeon (which is a balance they're still trying to get right, but hey it's a process) and so on. And they do preview what they have in store for us. Not to mention we have the luxury of actual reps and designers occasionally stopping in or blogging, and guys like mudbunny nice enough to go digging for even more information.

Who else do you think they should foster good will with at this point? The 3e/PF people still haunting the WotC site and 4e threads? I see that as a lost cause, despite the fact many of them still seek nothing short of corporate and designer apologies for making something they don't like. Grognards? New players? The Chicken Littles?

Yes there have been PR blunders along the way. I'm not denying that. But I do see positive change. I mean fostering good will isn't instantaneous. They are taking the preliminary steps to communicate with their fan base and experiment with new products, despite the great internet wailing- people who will never be content with this game.

 

[DandD]

Gamma World. And the new Fortune Cards.

I doubt that fortune cards will prove that much of a success.

2) A class (or classes) which doesn't have individual levels for its powers. They may well have a "power cascade" mechanic, where if you use a power of a given type, you may also use any other powers you have of the same type. (The initial class may be some sort of Elementalist or Wu Jen, so that the cascades can be easily understood, such as the Fire Cascade...)

That actually sounds very good.

3) Possibly a class that can take on any of the four roles, depending on the powers you choose. To maintain niche protection, the class would of course work better if you stick pretty solidly within a single role.

That would be a nightmare to balance, so rather unlikely.

Then, I'd expect 5e to take a format similar to Gamma World:

- A boxed set, rather than hardbacks.

- A simplified ruleset, again as in Gamma World.

- They may or may not ditch classes. The advantage of doing so is that they'd only need one deck of power cards, rather than several. On the other hand, keeping classes allows them to offer only 4 in the starter box, with available as DDI exclusives.

- A level-based system, where level controls the number of powers you have. However, the powers themselves don't have levels (instead, using the cascading effects of point #2 above). This allows them to sell a single deck of powers used at all levels. (Otherwise, you could open a booster and get only epic-level powers that you can't use for months!)

- A starter deck of power cards, with more available in random boosters (or virtual random boosters on the DDI). Naturally, there would be Common, Uncommon and Rare cards, with the starter deck containing only commons. It's even very possible that the physical and virtual decks will have limited overlap (and possibly with the best cascades only available if you combine powers from both).

- Tie-in between the collectable power cards and the DDI - each card has a code used to unlock the power in the DDI.

- More flexible retraining rules, allowing players to essentially switch out their entire deck between sessions if desired. (Or... they could allow players to have a deck of any size, but have their level limit the number of cards they can hold in a hand at a time. Then, with each encounter, players can redraw from the deck. Hmm...)

Some good news for the DMs: I would expect monsters to not be heavily randomised. Instead, I'd expect to see a single Monster Manual/Monster Vault containing lots of monsters, with more regularly appearing. Mostly, this is because they need DMs to keep running lots of games, to keep players playing (and buying). That said, I can see them being tempted to do either random minis or random tokens, possibly with some monsters only being available in the boosters.

It's worth noting that I didn't sleep very well, and am feeling extremely cynical today. Hopefully, none of the above will prove at all accurate.

Yeah, I actually think that all the points you listed off are actually a good idea to implement for 5th edition, without being cynical myself. And should randomised booster packs and minis become necessary, then it's because it proved to be a success, which then it's entirely the fault of the players... which then also simply means that tastes have changed over the decades, and people like you and me aren't part of these groups. It would suck for us, but oh well, not everybody can win.