Convincing 4th Edition players to consider 5th Edition

[jadrax]

The first question that leaps to mind here is "was it the same actual people doing both?"

My perception is that in the main it was the same people, but its more complex than that. The complaints levelled at 4th are not in general the things from 3.x that it 'fixed' but how it went about 'fixing' them. The people who wanted better balance, did not want every class getting the same power scheme.

4th Edition and Pathfinder are actually both attempts to fix the same complaints, it is just that 4th goes about it very radically and Pathfinder very conservatively. But their core audience for both is people dissatisfied with 3.x

 

[Zustiur]

The [4E] math works better than any previous edition.

Agreed. That doesn't mean I have to like it The 'flatter math' of 5E interests me a great deal. I want to avoid the 'take every possible upgrade to your attack rating, just to stay in line with where you started' thing that 4E does (see every 'the math is broken' thread for details).

[Alternatives to AEDU] Like what, Weekly?

Like vancian, and no dailies at all (old fighter) etc etc.
Though now that you mention it, weekly isn't so far away from the system I'm piecing together at the back of my mind. I was working on the principle that you gain less benefit from each rest in a consecutive dungeon crawl. i.e. regain full HP the first night, only regain 75% hp the second... with an equivalent slow down applying to spell slots and other refreshable abilities. The secondary element of my system being that the longer you stayed 'active' the more downtime you'd before the next adventure.

If I listed the other 25 things I'd change about 4E, I'd be going way off topic, so I'll leave that for other threads.

But I think the edition treadmill is proving to be a failed model. At least the way wotc has handled edition transitions. They cant risk splitting the fanbase with each release of a new edition.

This from the person who was suggesting that WotC should deliberately split their product line into 3 parts... But hey, it has long been established that I have no business sense, so I'll leave that point alone. Suffice to say that these two statement struck me as contradictory.


Back on topic though;
I do play 4E, so what are the things I'd carry forward into 5?
* Simple monster stat blocks
* Consistent dice/DC mechanics throughout
* Simple understandable combat mechanics and conditions (no 3E grapple!)
* Few(er) causes of opportunity attacks
* Monster roles
* Multiple monster examples within each species (though I think I'd put the focus of MM1 on more monster species rather than on variety within a species)
* Not spending minutes/hours picking your skill ranks each level
* The ability to have highly tactical combat (not something I'd use in general though)
* An evening out of class balance (not necessarily to 4E's extreme). As mentioned elsewhere, my first (and possibly only?) major step would be to stretch the 1-9th level spells across 30 class levels rather than 20.
* The greater mechanical distinction between races


And to answer the question more bluntly:
Q) What would it take for me as a 4E player to consider 5E?
A) Removal of 'powers'
and
A) Whatever is required to convince my current DM to make the switch.

I can't resist commenting on one thing that I would NOT carry forward:
* Round by round effects. Especially the +1 to X effects that only last for a round. There are way too many changing conditions to keep track of. I'm convinced that this is a major factor in how long our combats take.

 

[Bedrockgames]

If I listed the other 25 things I'd change about 4E, I'd be going way off topic, so I'll leave that for other threads.

This from the person who was suggesting that WotC should deliberately split their product line into 3 parts... But hey, it has long been established that I have no business sense, so I'll leave that point alone. Suffice to say that these two statement struck me as contradictory.
.

It isn't contradictory because the design here is to deal with the fact that the base is split three ways by offering three (maybe four) seperate lines fully tailored to each camp. So in this nstance you are not splitting the base further, rather you are retaining the current base by building on 4e with a 4e revised line, bringing back 3e customers with a revised 3e that is in the spirit and mold of the original, and reclaiming AD&D fans by doing a classic edition line. These would still all be new, but made in a way to appeal to the fans of those editions. It does have risks but it really isn't that different from what they are proposing in Next. They are just better able to customize the "modules" by removing the core system. So the 4e version isn't hindered by the fact that the core accomodotes 3e, and 3e revised isn't hindered by the need to seriously limit multiclassing for other editionsin the core. Each line will be more perfect for each target audience because they are not forced to share core mechanics.

The edition treadmill is different because you lose customers with each split. But if a split exists andyou can offer up different products for each group, you can retain those customers.

 

[Mercutio01]

I made a similar point in a PM to Neonchameleon. I don't know how viable that is (or even if it is viable), but there are games on the market right now that are the same game with different versions and modeling but all released under the same brand.

Take Monopoly. There were at least four different versions of that game on the shelf the last time I went to Target. Battleship had three (four, if you include the card game). Would it be so bad/hard to do the same with D&D? I mean, Basic and AD&D coexisted for years.

Anyway, idle speculation that's probably way off the mark, but I'm beginning to think that capturing the fractured D&D audience might only be feasible by publishing more than one version of the game.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I don't think you need to go that way for the first rule books.

The core needs to be simple and I think balanced by some model (or if it's unbalanced, the dials where you could restore balance should be easy to use). But the core also needs to already contain a few "modules" to move the game into the different directions it needs to go to capture more players.

Later rulebooks may indeed need to follow a split model - one book "only" for the simulation freak and the other for the combat rollplayer like me.

At any point where different groups would want different resolutions, you need to go with the simplest approach, and have a module in mind how to appraoch the different groups.

At some points, it may be not be possible to use the simplest approach, as that results in an overall non-game, but if so, they basically need to already have the solution that makes it into core as modular, and consider the implications of going a different route (and offer that route soon.)

 

[Minigiant]

Which is inevitable. I guarantee people who love 5e, and use a particular module will complain at length on this very forum that that module wasn't core, or that it wasn't released sooner, or that it came in a book that was geared mostly toward (insert grouping they dislike, i.e.) martial powers or players rather than DMs.

I have a small list of fringe modules I know wont make the first books and I am still recovering from my disappointment.

Disappointment for something not included in an unfinished game.

I guess I will have to make my own guild management system with salaries and NPC missions.

 

[Fifth Element]

Actual quality - be it in design or production - may have nothing to do with it. Real-life history is rife with examples of something of poor quality (a lot of late '70s disco music leaps to mind as one such example) pleasing its target audience and doing very well financially for no logical reason whatsoever.

You've picked a poor example, since taste in music is entirely subjective. There is no way to measure quality of music, except in the broadest professionally-produced versus sounds-like-13-year-olds-in-their-parents'-garage sense. Quite similar to RPGs, really.

This would have probably been true were it not for the way WotC blundered up the 4e release by running down 3e

I'm talking about who they intended the game to appeal to (their target market), not the specifics of a marketing campaign. It's who they were aiming for, not who they ended up hitting.

Well, we're not really discussing how these games look compared on paper, but how they were received and perceived.

Are we? I thought we were discussing the differences between editions. Such a conversation is impossible if we ignore what the books say, because everyone played the game differently.

 

[BobROE]

I can't really blame 'em for it though. The sheer amount (and validity) of criticism being leveled at the game - by it's own fans, on their own forums - must have made it seem like a reasonable thing to do. And 4e went ahead and addressed those complaints successfully. The 3.5 Fighter SUX! The 4e fighter was awesome. Heal-bots were boring but CoDzilla is broken! Here's a Cleric that's interesting, not broken, and not a heal-bot - and another alternative 'leader' as a bonus. SoDs destroy the game! OK, they're gone.

And on and on. 4e was a response to everything that was wrong with 3.5, and a mostly successful response. And it was rejected with greater rancor than I'd seen even in the most virulent threads where those complaints came to light. It was a stunning reversal by the fan base - a bit perverse, even, like all they really wanted was to complain and feel like they knew the game better than the folks making it.

I think one problem with that may have been to alot of gamers the problems with 3E were purely theoretical (or unknown if you didn't visit gaming boards). I know for my game when people complain about X, Y, Z in 3E/PF I think to myself "really? I've never run into that".

I'm not discounting that these things weren't problems for people. But rather that the number of people who actually encountered them were smaller than the internet would lead the designers to assume.

This means that when you market a game in a way that "offends" people who were playing the previous version, those people who don't know what "problems" the system has are more likely to be turned off. (since one hopes that the penetration of your marketing campaign is greater than the number of people who read things on forums).

 

[Herschel]

The first question that leaps to mind here is "was it the same actual people doing both?"

Many, yes. It's another version of the old "My mom is a total (jerk)!", "Yeah, you're right, your mom is a (jerk)." "What?!?!?! How dare you talk about my mom that way!!!!!!"

 

[SKyOdin]

Edit: Nevermind