Convincing 4th Edition players to consider 5th Edition

[Bedrockgames]

And I honestly find 3E a much bigger jump from the previous edition than 4E. That by itself is presumably enough to defeat the idea that 4E is "clearly" the most different, and as such it should be largely ignored when designing 5E.

i think which one is deemed a "clearly bigger change" boils down to numbers. Not that those numbers are available but if you polled all people who made both transitions and most said 3E was the bigger change, I would grant you the point that its basically regarded as the larger leap.

 

[Fifth Element]

i think which one is deemed a "clearly bigger change" boils down to numbers. Not that those numbers are available but if you polled all people who made both transitions and most said 3E was the bigger change, I would grant you the point that its basically regarded as the larger leap.

I don't think any such thing would even be possible. There are too many considerations to take into account - whether Skills & Powers and the Tome of Battle were used, for instance, and what house rules people were using. Ultimately it's an academic question, unless you're putting forth a claim that a certain edition should be ignored in favour of the others in the development of a 5E that is supposed to be as inclusive as possible. Or you're trying to establish a line between "us" and "them".

 

[Ahnehnois]

i think which one is deemed a "clearly bigger change" boils down to numbers. Not that those numbers are available but if you polled all people who made both transitions and most said 3E was the bigger change, I would grant you the point that its basically regarded as the larger leap.

A quick google search shows that extant ENW polls on the subject have a pretty clear conclusion. Link and Link
I of course wouldn't call it definitive, just trying to put some data out there.

Ultimately it's an academic question, unless you're putting forth a claim that a certain edition should be ignored in favour of the others in the development of a 5E that is supposed to be as inclusive as possible. Or you're trying to establish a line between "us" and "them".

It still goes to the thread topic. If we're talking about attracting current 4e players and what it would take for them to switch 5e, it matters how big of a change they're willing to accept from their current game versus the same for everyone else.

 

[Neonchameleon]

As I've said elsewhere; 4E is a good GAME, it's just not what I think of when I want to play DND. I used to play Warhammer 40k for my tactical fix. Ever since starting 4E I haven't felt any desire to play W40k at all. I'm already getting my tactical fix. I'm also getting my strategic fix from character building, rather than army selection.

Completely on a tangent here you might want to look into Privateer Press' Warmachine and Hordes games. If you want to go back to lumps of metal, measuring tapes, and the like it has a nice game of squish the general, warbeasts/warjacks that throw enemies around (normally each other - they prefer to squish everyone else), and the turns in which each army does everything (rather than phases) does really add to the depth of tactics. It also doesn't take too long to learn the basics if you are used to GW. Basically if you were to take almost everything that makes 4e into a good tactical game and then use it to create a minis-and-terrain wargame I think you'd end up with something like Warmachine/Hordes.

On a second tangent, I'm giving Heinsoo and Tweet's 13th Age a good hard look.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't think any such thing would even be possible. There are too many considerations to take into account - whether Skills & Powers and the Tome of Battle were used, for instance, and what house rules people were using. Ultimately it's an academic question, unless you're putting forth a claim that a certain edition should be ignored in favour of the others in the development of a 5E that is supposed to be as inclusive as possible. Or you're trying to establish a line between "us" and "them".

I think for WOTC, it is more than academic. This is information they probably want and need. They can't sample every gamer, but they probably can get a large representative sampling. It would just be more data among many. My personal opinion is that if you polled most gamers, the majority would say 4E is the most different (that is just asking the general question and not even getting into skills and powers or tome of battle---just for a general impression), but whether this was a positive or negative development would probably be much closer to 50-50. Regardless of how much a radical overhaul 4e is or is not there is clearly a substantial number of gamers who want Next to continue a more 4E trajectory. I am not one of them, but I can see they exist and have to be considered in the development of Next.

The problem WOTC faces is the 4E folks, the 3E folks and the Ad&d folks often want things that are completely oppositional. One group wants divine heal only, another wants non divine healers; one group wants one day heals another wants week ir more heals, one group wants each class to have powers and abilities, another group doesn't want this; some want the line between magic ad mundane blurred, others want a barrier between the two; some want daily or encounnter powers for mundanes, others refuse this....
It goes on and on. I am probably forgetting stuff. Whether 4e or 3e was a more radical break or not, you still have to deal with these oppositional preferences. I do think it is in their interest to understand perceptions about changes between editions (because it may give them a sense about how a 2E player might react to 3e elements or 4e elements). Beyond that though I dont think it really helps either camp's cause much.

 

[Neonchameleon]

It still goes to the thread topic. If we're talking about attracting current 4e players and what it would take for them to switch 5e, it matters how big of a change they're willing to accept from their current game versus the same for everyone else.

That's an interesting point. I think most 4e players would accept some pretty huge changes from 4e as long as the changes were for a purpose. I think a lot of us would like a new edition of 4e that burns about a thousand feats and sorts out things like Twin Strike and other multiattacks - the sort of thing producing 3.5 was supposed to do for 3e and that 2e did for 1e*.

But in the absence of a second version of 4e (meaning that 4e looks as if it will be the longest lasting edition of D&D produced by WoTC), I think what most of us would be happy with is a game that knew what it wanted. That was trying to do something well - and something different from 4e. If the vision for the game could be set out in a couple of sentences that don't reference other games (and it doesn't really matter what that vision is) we'd probably get something we'd play. However the wishy-washy goal to be all things to all D&D players and the designers not being sure what that even means or why many of the rules are there (see the Opportunity Attack fiasco) isn't what we want.

In short if WotC were to put out something like 13th Age I think we'd all buy it happily. Whether we'd switch I don't know. But the current stew isn't of much interest. Forward not back.

* No, Essentials doesn't count. Its role is somewhat closer to The Book of 9 Swords or Magic of Incarnum.

 

[Herschel]

Forward not back.

This is the crux of the issue. Many of us really hate the "back to the future" tripe being put forth with DDN. If they want to clean up AD&D, clean up AD&D with "AD&D Revised" or whatever, same with each edition. Unfortunately they really have no realistic way of making us "one big, happy family" with the direction they've shown us thus far.

Many of us have moved on from edition to edition, those that didn't don't need their new game. If I really enjoy XE why would I want to swith to DDN if I get things that are 1/8 of what I like and maybe another 1/3 resembles something I like?

Offer me a new game that's better than what I'm already playing and I'll buy it. The cute cheerleader I used to date may have settled down now but is married with three kids, filed bankruptcy and hasn't taken care of herself. Fond memories are nice, but the reality is that today is much different.

 

[Fifth Element]

If we're talking about attracting current 4e players and what it would take for them to switch 5e, it matters how big of a change they're willing to accept from their current game versus the same for everyone else.

That does matter, but what does that have to do with how big a change 3E was from 2E?

 

[billd91]

Many of us have moved on from edition to edition, those that didn't don't need their new game. If I really enjoy XE why would I want to swith to DDN if I get things that are 1/8 of what I like and maybe another 1/3 resembles something I like?

For that matter, you don't need WotC to support your preferred edition or development track either. This is about what we want and whether or not WotC thinks it will do better supporting one group, the other, or trying to woo together some subset of both.

 

[billd91]

That does matter, but what does that have to do with how big a change 3E was from 2E?

It's a case study, something that might be useful to analyze when trying to figure out why transitions from one edition to another might be more or less successful.