Will trying to maintain legacy and the "feel" of D&D hurt innovation?

[Gundark]

"D&D 4e does not feel like D&D to me" was a response I've read quite often on forums and heard others in game stores say. It's not an opinion that I personally share, however people felt this way and voted with feet/wallets. So this time around we have WotC shooting for the "feel" of D&D, that magical place, D&D Nirvana, Narnia in the back of the Wardrobe, Lolth's bedchamber. I mean, I think that this is a worthy goal, I enjoy the D&D game and the D&D experience and I am looking forward to the experience of play testing 5e.

However we gamers seem to be a hard audience to please, one small offhand comment from a designer sparks pages of debate and rage on the internet from people "What!!! Fighters will wear boxers and not briefs?!?! You have destroyed the soul of D&D, that's it I'm out!!!" I like to think I'm a reasonable person, and yet I too have my "dealbreakers".

The problem with legacy is that we have forced the designers into a box, and have told them “don't you stray too far from that box!!" Are we destroying innovation by forcing the designers stay in a closely defined "feel" of the game? Is there that great game mechanic that we are going to miss out on because the designers were too “scared” to explore certain options? I read the latest 5e blog on dice tricks and I’m looking at the “what do you think?” polls and I feel like saying “Yeah try them all! Let’s see what they do, and get our hands dirty” cause maybe we’ll find something really great. This public playtest has the opportunity to create a really great game; our job is to stay open minded and play test the out of whatever the designers throw at us. I would say to not be afraid of trying an idea because it (at first) doesn’t fit into what we feel D&D is, because maybe it’ll actually be really cool. We’ve all been there, the game that we thought we’d hate and it turned out to be awesome sauce. The “if it aint broke then don’t fix it” idea shouldn’t keep us from exploring other avenues.

The alternative is we keep the designers on a short leash, we rage at every little difference and and we end up with a D&D that is best summed up with a Dilbert comic strip I read once,

Dilbert comic strip for 10/31/1995 from the official Dilbert comic strips archive.

Then sadly we get a flat D&D, one that doesn’t inspire, like paying someone for a renovation on your house and they come in and re-arrange the furniture.

Either way we’ll get the D&D we desreve

 

[Savage Wombat]

I think you're right, but that's not a bad thing.

If a thing changes sufficiently, it stops being that thing. Maybe it's a better thing than before, but it's not the same. If I improve macaroni and cheese by replacing the macaroni with a different pasta, and replace the artificial cheese sauce with alfredo, you have a much better dish by most people's standards, but that won't make my kids eat it.

There is a lot of potential to create a better RPG than D&D, but if you stray too far from the source it becomes a different game, which has to win its own fans. People who want to know what they're buying ahead of time want an improved game, but still basically the same game.

What we want is to have our new-and-improved mac and cheese, while also being free to try the other pasta dishes in town, and maybe we'll find a new one we really like.

 

[Sunseeker]

I think it certainly does, and to me personally, it has already. I know some people play older editions and love them, can't fault 'em for that. But the older editions are not without their faults, and catering to an audience that hasn't bought new D&D books for nearly 20 years doesn't seem like a particularly sound business strategy.

 

[Khaalis]

There is a lot of potential to create a better RPG than D&D, but if you stray too far from the source it becomes a different game, which has to win its own fans. People who want to know what they're buying ahead of time want an improved game, but still basically the same game.

The problem with this line of thinking is that its a great way to lead to the death of the product. If there was no need for innovation and a "new" D&D, then they only need keep reprinting 1E, 2E, 3E and 4E to please their existing followers. They need never make another version. There is no profit in this however. The entire point of making a new D&D version is to be just that, new... Not old. For the brand to stay alive it needs to produce new material, and get people to buy that material.

If D&D is going to continue to thrive, it has to begin focusing on a new market, not so much on those of us in the hobby for 30+ years, because to be bluntly honest, it won't be long before we won't even be a target market for the game at all. For tabletops to thrive at all, it will require bringing in new generations of players.

Everything changes and evolves. Gaming, in all iterations of the term, has change a LOT over the years. If D&D doesn't change with the times it will be left to go the way of the dodo, just like so many other games (and other thing in life like rotary phones). New generations want new things from their games. People have to learn to face that fact. Those who want to play the old game, just aren't the target for a new game.

 

[Mattachine]

I think it will hurt innovation, and Shidaku makes a good point: why cater to folks that don't buy new books?

 

[Savage Wombat]

Thus the fine line that must be walked. The game must evolve, but remain true to itself. This is why the designers can't just do anything they want, but must balance the opposing forces to the best of their ability.

 

[hanez]

"D&D 4e does not feel like D&D to me" was a response I've read quite often on forums and heard others in game stores say. It's not an opinion that I personally share, however people felt this way and voted with feet/wallets. So this time around we have WotC shooting for the "feel" of D&D, that magical place, D&D Nirvana, Narnia in the back of the Wardrobe, Lolth's bedchamber. I mean, I think that this is a worthy goal, I enjoy the D&D game and the D&D experience and I am looking forward to the experience of play testing 5e.

...

The answer to your question is yes, of course it will hurt innovation. But it will also do another thing, preserve the D&D brand.

When I invite my friends over to play risk, they know what they are getting into even if I dont say what version of risk we are playing. Thats because all the variant versions hold true to a theme. And even though combat might be more realistic in Axis and Allies, thats not how Risk does it.

D&D works the same way, to most people who play it fighters, wizards and medusas and hundreds of other aspects have meanings that are central to the brand. Many of us want change, refinement, rebalancing, but not at the price of the game. Too much change, and I might as well be playing GURPs or D&D minis, or it would seem pathfinder

Frankly I've considered making the opposite point as a post on this board lately. Every time I open a thread someone has a neat new way of doing something that completely changes the definition of a way classes or races work in D&D.

Don't get me wrong, as I said we need change, D&D is not thaco, but it is wizards that memorize spells, medusas that turn you into stone, fighters that have mostly at will powers, classes that are different then eachother and sometimes its even mechanics as fluff. To many players these things define D&D, and if the company wants to continue redefining D&D and damaging there brand they may, but they'd better be sure they gain more players then they lose.

Personally I'm excited for a new update of D&D, I've been ready for almost 6 years and pathfinders getting really tired and old.

EDIT - I must also say I regret playing into the "innovation trap". 3e was just as innovative for allowing classes to stay true to themselves and finding clever ways to attempt to balance them, then 4e was for making a new game with new classes and powers and putting the "name" of D&D on it. Whats more innovative, capitalism or soviet russia, I'll let you choose what you prefer, but I don't want to play under a regime of classes forced to be the same again.

 

[Khaalis]

but it is wizards that memorize spells, medusas that turn you into stone, fighters that have mostly at will powers, classes that are different then eachother and sometimes its even mechanics as fluff. To many players these things define D&D, and if the company wants to continue redefining D&D and damaging there brand they may, but they'd better be sure they gain more players then they lose.

I have to completely disagree.

From WotC's own description... What is D&D?
"D&D is an imaginative, social experience that engages players in a rich fantasy world filled with larger-than-life heroes, deadly monsters, and diverse settings."

THIS is what D&D is. D&D isn't classes, it isn't THACO vs. d20, etc. Those are simply game engines or mechanics. Pretty much the only mechanic you can even truly call purely D&D is the use of the full polyhedron dice set.

Yes there are certain tropes of fantasy that must exist for the game to be D&D... with Dungeons and Dragons being at the top of the list with magic a close 3rd. Everything else is subjective. Fantasy has become a very wide open field of concepts and ideas. If anything, new ideas such as the magic from series such as Wheel of Time, Mistborn, and so many others since the 70s are MUCH more common than Vancian magic. To be honest, if you asked most gamers that weren't in the hobby for 10-15+ years, they couldn't even tell you where Vancian magic came from.

D&D needs to evolve, while keeping the core spirit of what D&D is... which is a social tabletop RPG. The physical mechanics do not necessarily the game make. New markets, new players are what will keep D&D alive. Does that leave grognards behind? Sure it does. Just like all the people who didn't want to give up LP's or 8-tracks. Sorry to them but they got left behind as life moved on. The same will and needs to happen with the RPG industry. Just because something "used to be" part of D&D (like Vancian magic), it doesn't mean it should remain a part of the game if there are other more progressive and better ways to handle mechanics.

 

[Spatula]

Yes, yes, and yes.

 

[Ratskinner]

"D&D 4e does not feel like D&D to me" was a response I've read quite often on forums and heard others in game stores say. It's not an opinion that I personally share, however people felt this way and voted with feet/wallets. So this time around we have WotC shooting for the "feel" of D&D, that magical place, D&D Nirvana, Narnia in the back of the Wardrobe, Lolth's bedchamber. I mean, I think that this is a worthy goal, I enjoy the D&D game and the D&D experience and I am looking forward to the experience of play testing 5e.

<snippage>

The problem with legacy is that we have forced the designers into a box, and have told them “don't you stray too far from that box!!" Are we destroying innovation by forcing the designers stay in a closely defined "feel" of the game? Is there that great game mechanic that we are going to miss out on because the designers were too “scared” to explore certain options? I read the latest 5e blog on dice tricks and I’m looking at the “what do you think?” polls and I feel like saying “Yeah try them all! Let’s see what they do, and get our hands dirty” cause maybe we’ll find something really great. This public playtest has the opportunity to create a really great game; our job is to stay open minded and play test the out of whatever the designers throw at us. I would say to not be afraid of trying an idea because it (at first) doesn’t fit into what we feel D&D is, because maybe it’ll actually be really cool. We’ve all been there, the game that we thought we’d hate and it turned out to be awesome sauce. The “if it aint broke then don’t fix it” idea shouldn’t keep us from exploring other avenues.
<snippage>

I actually don't think innovation is under threat from "recapturing the feel". I've personally been amazed at some of the indie games, and how well they capture old-school feel with new-school mechanics. What I do think threatens innovation are the "sacred cows" or similar thinking, expecially when some of them are fairly mechanical things to begin with.

I do think that mechanics inform playstyle and feel, but experience has lead me to believe that its not a one-to-one relationship. So different sets of mechanics can lead to similar feels and different feels can come from similar mechanics.

All that being said....I'm not getting the impression that we're going to see something that totally blows our minds with new bizarre mechanics (why am I rolling 2d12 -d8 to attack, again?) A lot of the things they have mentioned sound like good mechanical structure from either previous editions, OGL games, or even some indie game sources. (Of course, not having seen the actual mechanics, I can't be too sure about that.)

I'm also not so sure that the core of D&D needs a whole mess of mechanical innovation. 4e and its AEDU powers was a pretty big change from previous structure. While a lot of things it did were pretty good, I've run into plenty of people who were turned off with their first impression and never looked back.

So, who knows, maybe the optional modules will be where all the big innovations get put? That way we can play with them without worrying too much about whether its D&D or not.