D&D 5E Do you want D&D Next to succeed?

[Spatula]

Will you be happy if the game is popular, even if it's not one you'd want to play?

Will you be willing to give it a try to support the D&D brand that has brought so many people years of fun, even if the rules aren't perfect? (And really, have you ever thought any version of D&D had perfect rules?)

Do you trust that the game designers are people who love gaming, who want to help others have fun, and who are trying to make a game that best encapsulates what they think the audience wants D&D to be?

Do you think that the benefits of having Hasbro's infrastructure to help market, distribute, and sell the game outweigh whatever limitations might be passed down from a corporate level?

Will you not begrudge your fellow gamers if they have different tastes than you?

1) I would be happy if 5e was a huge success (like early 80's D&D success), because more players is good for the hobby. Otherwise I am fairly indifferent.

2) I'd be willing to try it, sure, but not to "support the D&D brand." D&D had its time in the sun. It was all things to all people for a long time because there weren't a lot of easily-available alternatives. That's changed, dramatically so with the internet and the rise of the D&D retro-clones. The D&D brand is meaningless to me. A good fantasy RPG that's suited to my tastes and those of my group is what's important.

3) Yes, yes, and which audience?

4) Well, that's hard to tell. From everything I've read, I'd say no. It's not like WotC had an issue getting their products into stores prior to the sale to Hasbro. And all of Hasbro's infrastructure didn't help 4e reach Hasbro's target numbers (which I am guessing would have been very solid for a smaller company).

5) I don't begrudge them for their tastes. I do begrudge them for the endless D&D edition wars, which, along with the 5e playtest docs, have pretty much driven me away from D&D and into the arms of other RPGs.

 

[FireLance]

Will you be happy if the game is popular, even if it's not one you'd want to play?

Sure, why not? My happiness is not dependant on whether or not I would want to play 5e.

Will you be willing to give it a try to support the D&D brand that has brought so many people years of fun, even if the rules aren't perfect? (And really, have you ever thought any version of D&D had perfect rules?)

I'll certainly try it, but it has a lot to measure up to. And if it fails to do that, or can't be easily modified to do that, I'll just stick with what I already have.

Will you not begrudge your fellow gamers if they have different tastes than you?

I don't mind different tastes. However, people who try to pass off subjective views as objective fact annoy me.

People who unrelentingly negative (those who only ever seem to talk about what they dislike instead of what they like) and who spread misinformation also annoy me.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

No. Let it burn! Let them all burn!

Seriously, how can anyone not answer "yes" to the first question, unless they just feel spiteful about WotC because WotC stopped publishing their favorite edition and they want to punish WotC and everyone else to boot.

Yes, I'd like 5E to succeed whether or not I like it.

 

[drothgery]

Will you be happy if the game is popular, even if it's not one you'd want to play?

If 5e isn't something that I'll like -- and that's looking very likely right now (I'd prefer to play 4e or 3.x/Pathfinder over something like the playtest version of 5e) -- I'd still want it to be at least enough of a success that Hasbro will let WotC try to make a 6e that I might like (No WotC tabletop RPG has stayed in print more than five years without a major revision. Ever. Do not be shocked when 6e is announced in 2017, regardless of how successful 5e was or was not.).

Will you be willing to give it a try to support the D&D brand that has brought so many people years of fun, even if the rules aren't perfect?

I don't have any abstract interest in the D&D brand, except to the extent that it keeps a relatively big name in fantasy RPGs around. I'd be willing to try it once because it doesn't look terrible, just not my thing; I played a lot of 2e back in college and had a lot of fun with it even if I really don't care for its mechanics now.

 

[WheresMyD20]

Will you be happy if the game is popular, even if it's not one you'd want to play?

If I don't want to play it, then I won't care if it's popular or not.

Will you be willing to give it a try to support the D&D brand that has brought so many people years of fun, even if the rules aren't perfect? (And really, have you ever thought any version of D&D had perfect rules?)

Give it a try? Sure, as long as I can try it before spending money on it. I won't support it or get behind it unless I like it, though.

Do you trust that the game designers are people who love gaming, who want to help others have fun, and who are trying to make a game that best encapsulates what they think the audience wants D&D to be?

I believe they're all those things, but they're also people who want to bring home a paycheck (like most of us) and may need to compromise on design in order to sell a product.

Do you think that the benefits of having Hasbro's infrastructure to help market, distribute, and sell the game outweigh whatever limitations might be passed down from a corporate level?

Not in the slightest. I don't care at all if the game is popular, I just want a great game. I'm inclined to think that having to please Hasbro is likely to drag down the game.

Will you not begrudge your fellow gamers if they have different tastes than you?

I don't care what everyone else is playing. As long as I can find a few players who want to play the same game I want to play, I couldn't care less about what the popular crowd does.

Let's stand behind D&D Next. What do you say?

I say let WotC make a version of D&D that I like better than my preferred edition, then I'll get behind it. Otherwise, I'll just ignore it the same way I ignored 4e and 3.5e. The switch from 3e to 3.5e drove me back to old-school D&D and I'm quite happy there, although I am open-minded and will try 5e. It's going to have to clear a very high bar, however, to make me want to switch.

The one thing I won't do is support 5e, or any product, simply out of brand loyalty. I vote with my dollars. If I don't like the design, I won't buy it and I won't play it.

 

[amerigoV]

I hope it succeeds beyond everyone's wildest dreams. That creates more players I can convert to Savage Worlds

Unless my group falls apart or I move, I probably will pass on this edition of D&D (other than if there are some cool modules)

 

[Argyle King]

Will you be happy if the game is popular, even if it's not one you'd want to play?

Will you be willing to give it a try to support the D&D brand that has brought so many people years of fun, even if the rules aren't perfect? (And really, have you ever thought any version of D&D had perfect rules?)

Do you trust that the game designers are people who love gaming, who want to help others have fun, and who are trying to make a game that best encapsulates what they think the audience wants D&D to be?

Do you think that the benefits of having Hasbro's infrastructure to help market, distribute, and sell the game outweigh whatever limitations might be passed down from a corporate level?

Will you not begrudge your fellow gamers if they have different tastes than you?



Me, I liked AD&D 2nd edition because I was gaming with friends, but I house ruled it. I liked D&D 3rd edition because I was gaming with friends, but I house ruled it. I liked D&D 4th edition because I was gaming with friends, but I house ruled it.

I know 5e isn't going to satisfy me wholly from a game mechanic perspective. But what would make me happy, what would excite me and bring joy that no system has in a decade, would be if my fellow gamers across the internet would realize that we share a hobby, and while our differences might mean we won't share a game with a given person, that shared love of RPGs should unify us.

Let's stand behind D&D Next. What do you say?

I am not emotionally invested in the popularity of D&D 5th Edition one way or the other. At this point in time, I do not feel the popularity of the game (or lack of popularity) will evoke a strong reaction from me.

I think my answer to the second question is a question of my own. Am I part of the audience the designers are shooting for? I have no doubt they will create a game which some people enjoy. However, I am not convinced I am part of the target audience. I have a hard time relating to a lot of things which the community at large is supposedly said to want.

I think Hasbro's infrastructure should be something which benefits D&D. What Hasbro will do as a company is not something I can answer though.

I do not begrudge someone for having fun; even if it is with a game I do not care for. Currently, my favorite rpg is a game which is not part of the D&D family. I still have many friends who prefer D&D.

I will close by saying I will not buy D&D 5th Edition solely based upon name recognition nor will I buy it because of brand loyalty. At this point in time, I do not feel brand loyalty is something D&D has earned from me. In fact, I would say it is something WoTC has lost; I say that because at one time I probably would have purchased their products without much questioning involved. I am in no way suggesting that I know with 100% certainty that I will not buy the game. I am only suggesting that I will not buy D&D just for the sake of buying/supporting D&D. If WoTC -as a company- wants my money, they will be required to earn it by making a product I want to purchase.

 

[Dark Mistress]

Will you be happy if the game is popular, even if it's not one you'd want to play?

I would rather DnD be a popular game. But I won't be happy or unhappy if I find it is not a game I want to play.

Will you be willing to give it a try to support the D&D brand that has brought so many people years of fun, even if the rules aren't perfect? (And really, have you ever thought any version of D&D had perfect rules?)

I will check it out and if it is a game I enjoy I will play it and maybe buy books for it.

Do you trust that the game designers are people who love gaming, who want to help others have fun, and who are trying to make a game that best encapsulates what they think the audience wants D&D to be?

I think the designers are people that love gaming and want to make a fun game that other people can enjoy to.

Do you think that the benefits of having Hasbro's infrastructure to help market, distribute, and sell the game outweigh whatever limitations might be passed down from a corporate level?

No DnD did well in our niche hobby long before Hasbro ended up buying WotC and if anything PR has gotten a lot worse. I honestly have seen little to no benefit that Hasbro has brought that I don't think WotC could have done as good or better on their own.

Will you not begrudge your fellow gamers if they have different tastes than you?

If they are having fun who cares.

Let's stand behind D&D Next. What do you say?

I will check 5E out and if I like it, I will buy books and or play it. I have a few tiers of gaming and if it falls in the first two I will buy books and if it falls in the third I will play it.

Tiers
1) Preferred game of choice - currently Pathfinder: I buy tons of books for Pathfinder and would for any game that became my preferred game of choice.
2) Games I enjoy, Deadlands, Cortex, In Nomina, Spacemaster, World of Darkness books, etc. - These are games I like playing, like to run sometimes and I buy the core books and some select other books for. Mostly when I playing in them.
3) Games that I think are ok, 4E, Retro Clones, GURPS, HERO, etc. - These games are ones that I can have fun playing from time to time.
4) Games I don't like, Fudge, etc - These are just games that for what ever reason i just don't enjoy playing.

 

[Cadfan]

Will you be happy if the game is popular, even if it's not one you'd want to play?

Yes.

Will you be willing to give it a try to support the D&D brand that has brought so many people years of fun, even if the rules aren't perfect? (And really, have you ever thought any version of D&D had perfect rules?)

No. "Giving it a try" with an RPG typically involves investing a significant amount of time and energy. I don't have that much of it for gaming. So I will not be trying out a game that I have good reason to think that I will not like. I will, at least, borrow the books and read them, if anyone I know buys them. I'd like to at least learn what I can from seeing how a group of professionals addressed the issues of RPG design.

Do you trust that the game designers are people who love gaming,

Yes.

who want to help others have fun,

Yes.

and who are trying to make a game that best encapsulates what they think the audience wants D&D to be?

For a given definition of "audience," yes. I just think they're wrong. Both the designers, and the audience.

I guess my biggest fear about 5e is that it will be forgettable. 3e genuinely advanced the technology of RPG design. So did 4e. Even if you hate the implementation, the ideas that were utilized were cutting edge. I don't mean stuff like "Everyone uses the same power structure," I mean stuff like "We genuinely spent significant time building equal spotlight time into the very structure of the game." These are game design ideas that are objectively good, and that hadn't featured very prominently in RPGs... in the gaming world, RPGs tend to be fairly unique in being designed in a very haphazard, "gut instinct" kind of way (Compare a modern RPG, any of them, with a solid modern Euro board game like Agricola...). I'm just not seeing anything like that yet in the 5e previews.

Do you think that the benefits of having Hasbro's infrastructure to help market, distribute, and sell the game outweigh whatever limitations might be passed down from a corporate level?

Yes. Hasbro gets too much abuse. I doubt they're meaningfully harming the D&D brand, and they're probably helping it quite a lot.

Will you not begrudge your fellow gamers if they have different tastes than you?

I don't know how to answer this one because it has too many negatives. But no, I don't begrudge people different tastes. I just wish they had broader tastes.

I... this is something that's been bothering me a lot recently. Comic books, fantasy novels... there's just this fear of creativity that's been driving me insane, and pushing me out of the fandom. Maybe its not 5e that's disappointing me so much as it is the entire fan community. The biggest innovation in fantasy gaming in recent history was probably the Dragon Age universe, and it's just D&D where every single D&D race or class was given a tiny, tiny change, so that its just different enough to seem new and exciting if you don't think about it too hard, but its familiar enough that its comforting. Its like when a foreign movie becomes really popular in the US, and you realize that it became popular because its exactly like US movies but with a very slight tinge of unfamiliarity that makes people feel like they're avant garde when they watch. I'm just tired of it. I'm tired of things that are supposed to be different and unique and wondrous, but which are actually just too... comfortably unchallenging.

I just want to see something innovative! It doesn't have to be that crazy. You know what would make me truly excited, that I just thought of right now? If they took Vancian magic, put it in the game, and actually had the balls to make it a genuine part of the physics of the game universe. I HATE Vancian magic, but if they did that I'd be happy because it would open up new ideas. Maybe if you stab a wizard in the brain, STUFF comes out. Like, explosions and summoned extraterrestrial badgers and junk. Because he crammed all those things in there earlier in the day. We could work that idea in all over the setting, and come up with interesting ideas based on it. But we won't, because we need room for sorcerers, with an entirely different magical physics. And Clerics. And Psions. And Druids. The concern for giving everyone their fan service prevents that fairly retro innovation. We can't just sit down and do something genuinely right, because that might exclude people who like other things. So we'll do everything badly, and promise that a module will fix it someday.

Let's stand behind D&D Next. What do you say?

No.

I'll be happy that other people are happy. But that's it. I'll run my 4e game for as long as it gives my players joy. I don't know what I'll do after that.

If 5e ever comes around to telling me something new and different that I can do in 5e that I can't do now, I'll come around. But until then, no. 3e did that. 3.5 did that. 4e did that. 4e Heroes, uh, didn't... But 5e could. And really that's all it will take. I'll get all excited about the new idea and start making character and campaign ideas in my head and be all for the new system, because I'm a very, very pro-new fan. But that won't happen as long as the 5e previews promise me nothing but more fightery fighters, more wizardy wizards, and more thiefy thieves. I've done that.

Well, this turned into a downer. But I'm down, so I guess everybody else gets to be too.

 

[billd91]

I... this is something that's been bothering me a lot recently. Comic books, fantasy novels... there's just this fear of creativity that's been driving me insane, and pushing me out of the fandom. Maybe its not 5e that's disappointing me so much as it is the entire fan community. The biggest innovation in fantasy gaming in recent history was probably the Dragon Age universe, and it's just D&D where every single D&D race or class was given a tiny, tiny change, so that its just different enough to seem new and exciting if you don't think about it too hard, but its familiar enough that its comforting. Its like when a foreign movie becomes really popular in the US, and you realize that it became popular because its exactly like US movies but with a very slight tinge of unfamiliarity that makes people feel like they're avant garde when they watch. I'm just tired of it. I'm tired of things that are supposed to be different and unique and wondrous, but which are actually just too... comfortably unchallenging.

I just want to see something innovative! It doesn't have to be that crazy. You know what would make me truly excited, that I just thought of right now? If they took Vancian magic, put it in the game, and actually had the balls to make it a genuine part of the physics of the game universe. I HATE Vancian magic, but if they did that I'd be happy because it would open up new ideas. Maybe if you stab a wizard in the brain, STUFF comes out. Like, explosions and summoned extraterrestrial badgers and junk. Because he crammed all those things in there earlier in the day. We could work that idea in all over the setting, and come up with interesting ideas based on it. But we won't, because we need room for sorcerers, with an entirely different magical physics. And Clerics. And Psions. And Druids. The concern for giving everyone their fan service prevents that fairly retro innovation. We can't just sit down and do something genuinely right, because that might exclude people who like other things. So we'll do everything badly, and promise that a module will fix it someday.

No.

Well, going for the avante garde or anything more than a couple standard deviations away from the mean is tantamount to saying "We want a niche product" rather than "We want a broadly popular product". That's the way the world pretty much works.

If you were to take everyone's preferences and plot them then run the best fitting line (or plane, or any other n-dimensional best fit), you are going to see most of the overlap in the relatively uncontroversial and, as you put it, comfortably unchallenging center. So if you want a broadly popular product, like the summer blockbuster, the Dan Brown page-turner, the American sitcom, teen pop, that's exactly where you go. That's where WotC seems to want D&D to be and that's where it has been for 30 odd years. Why would they turn their back on that and set their sights deliberately on a smaller market?

Dread is pretty innovative and clever with its use of the leading questions on the questionnaire and the Jenga tower. But it's never going to have D&D's market because I think its designers and publishers recognize it can't cover the same breadth of appeal.