Is it time for 5E?

[Stormonu]

Well, they can't release 5e yet, they are still working on a way to make the game

- require collectible cards
- require collectible dice
- require collectible minis
- require a monthly electronic subscription

Actually, reviewing that list, they're already at 3 out of 4. Maybe it is coming soon! They just have to dust off all the old Dragon Dice and make it so you use those instead of standard dice.

Strangely, I was drawn to WHF3, and it seems like a really good game. It:

- requires cards (and only comes with enough copies for 3 players)
- requires custom dice (and its best to have each player buy their own set)
- has a wide range of WHF minis you *could* use (but doesn't require them or a battlemat)

Don't know if they have electronic support.

In short, I don't think any of the elements above (cards, custom dice, minis and electronic support) are bad things, nor is requiring them. I'm just not personally into the idea of them being collectible...er, yet. Done right, though, I might go for it as a player. A game lite enough that "open a pack & play your character" would be something I'd be willing to try. But not if they treated the DM the same way - ugh. Couldn't see that side working that way.

 

[mxyzplk]

Strangely, I was drawn to WHF3, and it seems like a really good game. It:

- requires cards (and only comes with enough copies for 3 players)
- requires custom dice (and its best to have each player buy their own set)
- has a wide range of WHF minis you *could* use (but doesn't require them or a battlemat)

Don't know if they have electronic support.

In short, I don't think any of the elements above (cards, custom dice, minis and electronic support) are bad things, nor is requiring them. I'm just not personally into the idea of them being collectible...er, yet. Done right, though, I might go for it as a player. A game lite enough that "open a pack & play your character" would be something I'd be willing to try. But not if they treated the DM the same way - ugh. Couldn't see that side working that way.

Warhammer's a good inspiration, you just rule "you have to have the mini to play the mini" Warhammer mini battles style and sure, take the dice idea from WFRP3. And you'd just have to get rid of the DM. They've been whitting away at the DM's role anyway, and there are GM-less indie games out there that they've probably been following. Once you get rid of the DM then nothing stands in the way of your great collectible dice/mini/card/online combo platter. And adventures, too, expand Encounters to be adventure packs (perhaps with a collectible element from the online thing- "bonus room!" You're left with the perfect game.

 

[eyebeams]

The choice to design a new edition is not a game design directive. It's a business management directive. So the time between editions has nothing to do with "design lessons learned" or anything else.

5th edition's primary challenge will be to make its game systems engaging from a narrative and story world perspective. 4th was notably careless in the way it brought systems, traits and powers into the world. Disdain for the game as something straddling game and fiction reached its zenith in the form of innovative systems that were difficult for many gamers to bring into the fiction and thus, give a damn about. (HINT: When you decide that all soft content creation sucks as a basic corporate dictum, you lose the ability to understand subtle, interstitial things about what you're doing.)

4e makes your fighter really nifty, but it doesn't make you care about your fighter. I look at iconic fighters and I just don't care who they are. They're anonymous martial arts experts. In earlier editions, you just might be a local boy done good -- y'know, that thing fantasy novels do -- or a general, pulpy badass -- that thing *other* fantasy novels do -- but not here. Who are you? You're a guy best understood by referring to other types of games, and that constitutes an argument to play those games. While I do think there;s no problem with taking concepts from MMOs and JRPGs, those need to be more than shallow images and crunch concepts.

Now I love 4e, but this is a real problem. The descriptions and supporting fiction, even the format of power writeups need to satisfy the need to situate them in fiction. Play and DMing advice need to deal with this head on.

To support this, 5e needs a world -- a real one, not vague descriptions of lost Nerath. It needs all the trimmings that last decade told you sucked, because it turns out that these were the only things keeping D&D from descending into dumb ruminations on how awesome it was when you were a kid, which is no help at all. It needs a history, important NPCs we all know -- a world all D&D players know well, even if they don't choose to play in it.

Lastly, 5e needs cross-platform electronic support that lets players choose which tools they'll use, use them on any device, and which have significant advantages over fan-built alternatives.

 

[caudor]

I think eyebeams is correct in suggesting that new editions are driven by corporate business needs.

Such is the nature of corporate politics. Change is driven from the top down, not the bottom up. And sometimes, all of us are dumber than any one of us.

Consider recent events, sudden product cancellations, shifts in direction, etc. It is plainly apparent the WotC is thrashing about...trying to change the tires while the car is moving. This is not an easy task; I'm not at all surpized it looks messy and to some....desparate.

Do you still consider 5e to be out of the question late this year or next? I'm not sure it will be an new edition, but I believe big changes are coming sooner rather than later.

 

[Alzrius]

To support this, 5e needs a world -- a real one, not vague descriptions of lost Nerath. It needs all the trimmings that last decade told you sucked, because it turns out that these were the only things keeping D&D from descending into dumb ruminations on how awesome it was when you were a kid, which is no help at all. It needs a history, important NPCs we all know -- a world all D&D players know well, even if they don't choose to play in it.

I agree, but apparently the Forgotten Realms showed us that a significant number of gamers live in abject terror of "canon lawyers" that develop around settings that have all of those trimmings.

Lastly, 5e needs cross-platform electronic support that lets players choose which tools they'll use, use them on any device, and which have significant advantages over fan-built alternatives.

Just so long as that support is optional, and not required. I still love my paper books and print magazines.

 

[shadzar]

I agree, but apparently the Forgotten Realms showed us that a significant number of gamers live in abject terror of "canon lawyers" that develop around settings that have all of those trimmings.

I would say the Realms failed because of trying to adapt something that was designed to fit somewhere else, and there was nothing to bridge the gap for the players...as well as too many Realms-shattering events.

Had Abeir replaced Toril with the same locales, but all the people missing and 4th had just taken place on the lost planet of Abeir, then things could have been different because the canon didnt have to come into play. The lost of the main supporting cast of the Realms could have been seen as making the world not the Realms, but as long as the places were still their, this alternate Realms could have been done better with less fight as new canon could have been made for it. Why different people inhabited Abeir and ended up with the same cities? Only Mystra knew....maybe Maztica, Kara-Tur, and the others didn't exist on Abeir even. Being lost for so long, then it truely would have been the Forgotten Realms.

So when making a world for the game, it needs to be something all can agree on and accept, yes.

 

[Dice4Hire]

To support this, 5e needs a world -- a real one, not vague descriptions of lost Nerath. It needs all the trimmings that last decade told you sucked, because it turns out that these were the only things keeping D&D from descending into dumb ruminations on how awesome it was when you were a kid, which is no help at all. It needs a history, important NPCs we all know -- a world all D&D players know well, even if they don't choose to play in it.

Yes and no

Yes, it need something better than points of light.

No, we never ever ever need another FR with every grain of sand on every beach named and given a unique histroy.

But there is a lot of middle ground. I like blurbs and interesting parts, but there needs to be enough history to hang a campaign and a character background on. Look at H123, P123, and E123. At the end, the world was pretty interesting, but full of holes. At the beginning all characters could do was pick cliche #357 and go with that for their background. There was no world.

And now the 4E default world is still mostly non-existant. If you read all the blurbs and fluff books, there are enough hints to put it together, but it is still full of holes and needs to be consolidated into one book.

That should have been campaign setting #1, not FR. FR should have been #2.

I really liked Dark Sun as I thought it had everything to run, well enough to run. A lot of hints and some solid facts. But it is not enough for everyone running a Dark Sun game to be even moderately on the same page. I had to think long and hard about the world after I read the book and before I started my first game, to fill in the holes and make everything hang together. Now that I ahve done tha, I like the world a lot, but I'll bet it is different form any other DM's world.

And it should nto be that different.

 

[eyebeams]

Good points about the Realms. As I mentioned in another thread, event-driven Things That Change Everything every year, and arcs that were tightly bound to a few real protagonists was not just a 90s RPG thing, but a 90s nerd property thing. Remember Marvel's Heroes Reborn? That stuff. (Marvel still does big events, but they tend to be more aware of consequences and avoid treating as many characters as chaff. Plus, Marvel and DC now allow some looser and alternate continuities to be more than novelties.)

So no, nothing like the old Time of Troubles, but yeah, there should be Elminster and Drizzt and yes, many areas that are pretty well detailed. But along with these, we need wild areas and clear direction as to how they interact with PC protagonists.

Have you ever read White Wolf's Scion? It does an excellent job of presenting its setting along with canon NPCs *and* sample characters, along with a major story arc that happens to *also* be the included campaign. So even though there are many indications as to what happen's to Thor's son, we go into knowing that Thor's kid is a placeholder for my PC. That works great.

 

[rounser]

To support this, 5e needs a world -- a real one, not vague descriptions of lost Nerath. It needs all the trimmings that last decade told you sucked, because it turns out that these were the only things keeping D&D from descending into dumb ruminations on how awesome it was when you were a kid, which is no help at all. It needs a history, important NPCs we all know -- a world all D&D players know well, even if they don't choose to play in it.

It's not that simple, although I agree that WOTC's stone soup world is the wrong answer (and the equivalent of doing all the fun stuff like naming empires, whilst leaving all the hard yards of fleshing out to the players, which sounds more like a reaction to complaints about FR than anything else).

First, D&D gets used by it's players as a Fantasy Adventure Construction Kit. Homebrew has been and probably always will be the most popular setting. D&D is not a movie or a comic book, but a form of self-actualisation like a fantasy Lego kit. It should start acting more like it, and actively support and encourage it, IMO, because that's what it ends up getting used for mostly.

This is at odds with selling novels, and also at odds with design creativity (i.e. design with a specific world in mind always ends up brighter and better than not), and also with the part of the audience who doesn't have time or desire to worldbuild, so there is a strong argument to make worlds available. But the implied setting should not tread on the toes of DMs by saying "dark gnomes are from the empire of Grumoor" in the PHB. Far too many DMs don't like your name, the idea of dark gnomes having had an empire, and in general you impinging on the fun of the game. Put the world in an appendix where it belongs as a serving suggestion, unless it's something less obtrusive, like Drawmij on a spell name.

 

[eyebeams]

It's not that simple.

First, D&D gets used by it's players as a Fantasy Adventure Construction Kit. Homebrew has been and probably always will be the most popular setting. D&D is not a movie or a comic book, but a form of self-actualisation like a fantasy Lego kit. It should start acting more like it, and actively support and encourage it, IMO, because that's what it ends up getting used for mostly.

This is at odds with selling novels, and also at odds with design creativity (i.e. design with a specific world in mind always ends up brighter and better than not), and also with the part of the audience who doesn't have time or desire to worldbuild, so there is a strong argument to make worlds available. But the implied setting should not tread on the toes of DMs by saying "dark gnomes are from the empire of Grumoor" in the PHB. Far too many DMs don't like your name, the idea of dark gnomes having had an empire, and in general you impinging on the fun of the game. Put the world in an appendix where it belongs as a serving suggestion, unless it's something less obtrusive, like Drawmij on a spell name.

They tried it that way, and here we are: four editions in a decade. The whole game vs. novel argument is a false dichotomy. Obviously you don't say D&D is definitely in a single world, but you don't provide a half-assed default setting, either.