Do you want/are you ready for a D&D 5th edition?

[William Ronald]

I have tried 4E and really did not feel much for it. I am playing Pathfinder currently, and like the game better. I found very little use for the 4E core rules books. I am willing to try 5e a few times, but I am not sure that I will buy the books. So, I abstained from voting.

However, like TheAuldGrump, I do have worry about the market being split. While I have my own likes and dislikes in games, I respect that other people may have preferences that are as legitimate to them as mine are to me. Perhaps we can avoid any future edition wars, but this is likely too optimistic. I am not sure how people would react to a 5E as a game, but I would hope that we can at least try to be more respectful to each other as gamers.

Maybe it is too much to expect that 5E -- whether it comes out or when it comes out -- reunifies a gaming community that has grown more fractured with the years. Still, maybe we can be united in our love for our hobby and respect for each other. I have meet a lot of great people through this hobby, including several good friends. Regardless of what game that you enjoy, I wish that you can have as much fun and as many friends as I have had in some 30 years of gaming.

 

[VictorC]

Funny that Eric Mona isn't ready for a fifth edition. Has he ever had a single nice thing to say about the current edition. Link please?

 

[Tallifer]

However, like TheAuldGrump, I do have worry about the market being split.

I see no need for a Fifth Edition because of this very point.

D&D is already very nicely split between Pathfinder, Old School Renaissance and Fourth Edition. Each of these versions of D&D amply satisfies different kinds of players, dungeon masters and groups.

I would rather see continued improvements to Pathfinder and Fourth Edition, just as the Old School Renaissance keeps tweaking and expanding on their games.

Otherwise we will have a further split within the players who currently play Fourth Edition. Because I cannot really see people leaving Pathfinder for a Third Edition retroclone published by Wizards. Wizards has their market now and should try to keep it. And players who dislike Fourth Edition should stick with the myriad other D&D systems already published rather than wish that Fourth Edition be replaced by something that already exists elsewhere.

 

[DaveMage]

Funny that Eric Mona isn't ready for a fifth edition. Has he ever had a single nice thing to say about the current edition. Link please?

He likely loves the current edition.

It drove tons of people to play Pathfinder.

 

[Dausuul]

Otherwise we will have a further split within the players who currently play Fourth Edition. Because I cannot really see people leaving Pathfinder for a Third Edition retroclone published by Wizards. Wizards has their market now and should try to keep it. And players who dislike Fourth Edition should stick with the myriad other D&D systems already published rather than wish that Fourth Edition be replaced by something that already exists elsewhere.

Who are you to tell people what game they should play and what they should wish for? If an existing edition of D&D fulfilled everything that I wanted out of an RPG, I would play it and stick with it. None does, nor does any non-D&D RPG I have yet encountered. 4E comes closest, so that's what I play, but I have substantial issues with it (beyond the scope of what can be fixed with incremental updates) and am hopeful that 5E will fix some of them. I suspect there are people who feel the same way about Pathfinder that I do about 4E; the best option currently available for them, but far from the ideal.

Now, maybe there aren't enough of us to justify the risk of another split in the market. I expect WotC is doing a ton of customer research right now to determine that (or more accurately, I expect they've already done it and reached their conclusion). I leave that in their hands. What I'm going to do is say what I want, and if some RPG company thinks it can provide it at a price I'm willing to pay, go for it. If they succeed, I will buy it.

 

[IronWolf]

Funny that Eric Mona isn't ready for a fifth edition. Has he ever had a single nice thing to say about the current edition. Link please?

Er, it isn't like he makes a habit of bashing 4th edition as you seem to be implying.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'd be particularly pleased if they hired [MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION] to help with the design, as I love his ideas about the basic unit being 'the adventure' rather than 'the encounter'.

I will put you down as one of my references.

However, like TheAuldGrump, I do have worry about the market being split.

If only there was some sort of way to release the ruleset for free to any who wanted to modify it, to open up the game, so to speak, perhaps with some sort of license that provides a safe harbor to all and sundry who would like to write compatible rules, assuring that the game will live on forever with those who never want to leave, while still changing with the times, embracing some fixes, and moving forward with the path toward this decade's best-possible game system.

In only there was some sort of....open game license like that...man, then ANYONE could keep supporting 4e, and let the market speak to what that might support.

It would perhaps take some sort of mad genius to conceive of such a license, and for WotC to embrace it might mean that they want to support a rich fan community, rather than creating new walled gardens of IP that no one else is allowed to play in....

Ah, well, a banana can dream, can't he?

 

[Glade Riven]

Huh..only 3 years of 4e? Seems longer...

I voted yes, for two points: one, I am interested to see where it will go now that DDI provides some hard data for WotC to analyse. Two, if they announce next year, 5e will be release somewhere between 2013 and 2015 - which is 5-7 years of 4e. Remember, it was only 3 years between 3.0 and 3.5, and some of the changes were fairly drastic. 3.5 last 5 years, so a 5 year cycle isn't that surprising. It is also on par with what happens with videogames - usually, a major engine overhaul happens about every 5 years.

The next version of D&D may not even be marketed with an edition number - it'll be given some code name or something. I suspect that it will be more of a restructuring/consolidation of 4e - almost a 4.5.

Now, I know some folk in this thread are pining for the "good ol' days" when everything was d20. D20 OGL/D&D 3.5 were good for revitalizing the market. 4e was good for causing a diversification of the market (what some people call fracturing). Both events were good things for the industry, and things are not going to go back to the way they were. I, for one, am happy about that. A lot of smaller systems have gotten more attention, and a rise in market share.

 

[Tallifer]

Who are you to tell people what game they should play and what they should wish for? If an existing edition of D&D fulfilled everything that I wanted out of an RPG, I would play it and stick with it. None does, nor does any non-D&D RPG I have yet encountered. 4E comes closest, so that's what I play, but I have substantial issues with it (beyond the scope of what can be fixed with incremental updates) and am hopeful that 5E will fix some of them. I suspect there are people who feel the same way about Pathfinder that I do about 4E; the best option currently available for them, but far from the ideal.

Now, maybe there aren't enough of us to justify the risk of another split in the market. I expect WotC is doing a ton of customer research right now to determine that (or more accurately, I expect they've already done it and reached their conclusion). I leave that in their hands. What I'm going to do is say what I want, and if some RPG company thinks it can provide it at a price I'm willing to pay, go for it. If they succeed, I will buy it.

I see that my opinion offended you, but I stick by it. I do not want to see Fourth Edition with its tens of thousands of players abandoned to appease some others who do not like it. Let each play the game he likes and do not lobby to change the other man's game.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Funny that Eric Mona isn't ready for a fifth edition. Has he ever had a single nice thing to say about the current edition. Link please?

He actually has not said much about 4e, one way or another. The closest thing to 'bad' that he has said about 4e is that it was not ideal for the kind of adventures that Paizo wants to write.

You may want to review the lead up to both 4e and to Pathfinder, as the two are intertwined.

WotC kept procrastinating on the GSL, both about the rules and the terms of the license itself. In point of fact the license was not released until the game itself was gleaming on the horizon*.

Paizo had subscriptions to fill and adventures to write, with WotC not releasing anything to work with.

So, Paizo decided to skip 4e and to release Pathfinder rather than wait For WotC to finish the RD that they had promised to have finished months ago.

The game itself is almost incidental to why Pathfinder was written, even the horrible, bad, awful GSL is less important than the fact that the horrible, bad, awful thing was more than six months too late to be useful for any company wanting to release on opening day.

The fact that it turns out that there are more people that wanted to stick with the 3.X architecture than Paizo expected (and certainly more than WotC expected) is only icing on the cake.

The Auld Grump

* Or, depending on your viewpoint, 'the GSL was slumping rancidly on the horizon'....