D&D 5E Is DnD next chasing a pipedream?

[S'mon]

At some point PF will get old, moldy and bogged down under its own weight. We shall see how the fanboys react when Pathfinder 2.0 comes out. That is when D&D will win them back. (or not - I like to cover my bases when I make a predication).

That would seem to indicate that 5e launched far too early; in 2014 Pathfinder will still be in its prime. It was also too early for 4e fans to get tired of 4e.

 

[DaveMage]

Hasbro is all about the *brand* so as long as they can make a game that strengthens (or at least supports) the brand, then they may be as successful as they need to be.

They will likely make (significantly) more money on D&D in the future from things other than the tabletop RPG.

 

[JustinAlexander]

That would seem to indicate that 5e launched far too early; in 2014 Pathfinder will still be in its prime. It was also too early for 4e fans to get tired of 4e.

That would be my read on it. (Although it seems fairly evident at this point that the market collapse of 4E was turning catastrophic, so they had little choice.)

By my reading of the situation, the clear goal of 5E is to recover at least some of the market share that 4E has lost. To do that, it seems like it needs to accomplish three things:

(1) Attract new customers. Part of this is simply out-reach and marketing, but it can certainly be assisted with a new edition that's easier for new consumers to identify, pick up, and play. I know how I would do it, but it's not clear to me that 5E is actually going to eschew the "buy multiple 300 pages books and read 'em before you can start playing" model that's been D&D's modus operandi for the past 20 years. We'll see.

(2) Pull back some of the gamers lost to PF/3.5. The problem here is that these players have have a tremendous amount of time, energy, and money invested in the 3E ruleset. In order to overcome that inertia of investment, 5E would need to radically improve on 3E. But these gamers have already indicated that they're very satisfied with the 3E ruleset (that's why they're still playing it). So WotC would need to build a game substantially similar to 3E, but somehow also make enough improvements -- improvements that the vast majority of 3E players would agree were improvements and also consider significant enough to upgrade -- to win back customers who, AFAICT, are already very skeptical of WotC.

That's a tough nut to crack. And even if you crack it, it probably cripples you for achieving point #3...

(3) Retaining the vast majority of existing 4E gamers.

This basically boils down to an aphorism I've used a few times before: No reboot edition of an RPG has ever succeeded unless there is clear, deep, and widespread dissatisfaction in the existing customer base.

And there is no clear, deep, or widespread dissatisfaction in the 4E fanbase.

So while I know the 5E that I'd like WotC to produce (revert to 3E, overhaul the foundation to fix fundamental problems particularly in high-level play, keep the core gameplay of D&D that was present from 1974-2008) I don't actually think that game will be a success in 2015. (It would have been in 2008, but not in 2015.)

Worse yet, as you suggest: Paizo can simply sit back, watch WotC flounder with 5E, and then be perfectly positioned to release a conservative fix-up edition (as opposed to a reboot edition) of Pathfinder in, say, 2016 with absolutely no risk of WotC being able to take advantage of it.

 

[Loonook]

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

There's a result of chasing a pipedream. Was it pointless?

I feel that there was a real falloff between Kublai Khan and its sequels Kublai Khan 2: Electric Bugaloo, KK3: Beyond Pleasure-Dome, and of course the disaster of his later project Why Am I Covered In Invisible Spiders?

Sigh. The life of a poet.

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[Neonchameleon]

That would seem to indicate that 5e launched far too early; in 2014 Pathfinder will still be in its prime. It was also too early for 4e fans to get tired of 4e.

The question was what was there to bring out for 4e? Not that much - I wanted Birthright, Spelljammer, and mass and quick combat rules. But the players side stuff is more or less complete (and given the quality of the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide stopping when they were ahead might have been a good idea).

 

[S'mon]

Worse yet, as you suggest: Paizo can simply sit back, watch WotC flounder with 5E, and then be perfectly positioned to release a conservative fix-up edition (as opposed to a reboot edition) of Pathfinder in, say, 2016 with absolutely no risk of WotC being able to take advantage of it.

Pretty much, yes.

But here's the big thing: Paizo are not very good with rules. And it doesn't matter.

Paizo's great genius is in the presentation - style, tone, art - the marketing, and all the support stuff around the game, most notably their Adventure Paths, not in the crunch of the game itself. Take something like the Alchemist class - it feels cool, great concept, great presentation. The mechanics as such are just ok, but that doesn't matter (and all the Pathfinder mechanics are free in the PRD), that's not what the customers are paying for.

In their areas of strength, Paizo are significantly superior to WoTC - WotC do produce good fluff sometimes, but an order of magntitude less than Paizo, and with consistently weak adventures. In the fluff-race, WoTC are not competitive.

So it seems to me that WoTC's plan is doomed - they may well produce a 5e that is mechanically superior to 3e/PF, but they cannot compete in the areas that actually matter to Pathfinder's customer base.

 

[S'mon]

The question was what was there to bring out for 4e? Not that much - I wanted Birthright, Spelljammer, and mass and quick combat rules. But the players side stuff is more or less complete (and given the quality of the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide stopping when they were ahead might have been a good idea).

I think focusing the game on player-crunch is an alluring trap but ultimately a dead end. Lisa Stevens describes here how she saw TSR had fallen into that trap in the late 2e era, and was determined to avoid it with Pathfinder.

 

[Evenglare]

There are also many OTHER games, like 13th Age, that are viable games that 5th edition has to compete with.

 

[frankthedm]

They are happy with PF and are not going to switch. So what is the purposes of making a game that your target group won't play and which some of your current customers don't like.

Wotc doesn't need to get them to switch, Wotc just needs to get their GMs to switch. Pathfinder improved a good deal over 3.5, but still has many related issues. PF just reaped the benefits of 4E's idiosyncrasies. All 5E has to do to get a good chunk of PF GMs back is not be 4E. The PF work load alone will push them back to D&D.

 

[DaveMage]

Wotc doesn't need to get them to switch, Wotc just needs to get their GMs to switch. Pathfinder improved a good deal over 3.5, but still has many related issues. PF just reaped the benefits of 4E's idiosyncrasies. All 5E has to do to get a good chunk of PF GMs back is not be 4E. The PF work load alone will push them back to D&D.

Except that Paizo:

1. Has eliminated a ton of the workload with their own adventures and adventure paths, meaning GMs don't have to take the time to create things from scratch; and

2. Has been very fan-friendly. Paizo's shown 3.5 fans love that WotC, to put it mildly, hasn't. It will take a great deal to convince a Paizo fan to go back to WotC, which can be a schizophrenic company.

Frankly, with the corporate pressures and oversight the D&D team faces, I don't know how anyone can have faith in WotC long-term. (To be clear, I think the D&D designers will make a great game, but I don't have any faith that the corporate side will let them make the best product line - or even keep the team intact for very long.)