D&D 5E D&DN going down the wrong path for everyone.

[jrowland]

For myself, I'm in the sitaution where I have very little concern about the rules as a player - I'll play just about any system. In your analogy, I'm a very unpicky eater. I like all kinds of food, from all cuisines and cultures, and all I really want is a well prepared meal. And also, in real life when it comes to food, I'm also a very unpicky eater.

<SNIP>

The problem is that my easy going eater preferences really aren't relevant because 80% of my RPG career, I've been the GM.

It is very relevant. In regards to D&D Next, WotC is the chef, and you are the picky eater.

 

[D'karr]

I had been doing this but it seemed to have little effect. I guess my opinion is in the minority. Many of the things I complained about continue to drift further from my preferences, not closer to them.

Oh, I can definitely see that, and there have been several playtest packets that I've felt exactly the same as you describe.

In the end your opinions, my opinions, and the opinions of a lot of people are not going to make it into the game. That is to be expected in a game that is going through this process. I just have to remind myself that as part of the playtest, if I don't give them my opinion they most probably won't know what it is.

In the end, when the game is published, I might not like it. Then again I might love it. The only thing I know for sure is if I'm silent with my feedback to WotC they won't know about it.

I've made some of my opinions known here, but here it is not feedback. I need to send that information to WotC so that it is feedback, and they can act on it. If in the end they don't act on it I can't change that. But when the game comes out I'll be able to decide, with the complete package, if it is what I want. Right now I can't say that it is completely to my liking, but many things can and will probably change between now and publication. Will that make it to my liking? Who knows? We'll have to see.

 

[Celebrim]

It is very relevant. In regards to D&D Next, WotC is the chef, and you are the picky eater.

See, this is what I hate about analogies. Instead of arguing the point, you end up arguing the analogy. Instead of clarifying, the analogy ends up obscuring.

In the original usage of the analogy, the 'chef' was the GM, and the 'eaters' were players. WotC is not a GM or a player. It's a company the publishes gaming media. You can't just repurpose an analogy and necessarily make a point. The analogy wasn't even necessarily perfect in the first place, and is likely to be even less perfect if you force it to refer to yet a third situation as if there was a one to and onto mapping between all three situations. There are lots of features of being a corporation that publishes gaming media for profit and being a DM that are different or exclusive to one or the other. They aren't perfectly comparable at all any more than gaming is perfectly comparable to eating a meal. If we want to keep extending the analogy past the breaking point, then WotC is analogous to a corporation that is preparing to launch a new line of casual dining restuarants, and I am a franchise owner/chef that has to decide whether to invest my money in opening a new restaurant. But really, by this point the analogy isn't helping understanding; it's hindering it.

 

[Obryn]

It is very relevant. In regards to D&D Next, WotC is the chef, and you are the picky eater.

... In which case, we pick different restaurants. Maybe not the same one, but not this one.

Are you implying that it's rude to think Next's design is unappealing at this time? Or am I misunderstanding you?

-O

 

[Jester David]

I've been saying this ever since 5E's goals were first announced. People who conservatively stick to 3.5/PF will still have no reason to change edition and will still stick to 3.5/PF, because it still makes changes that crowd doesn't want to see. 4E people will either find themselves a new game or just drop it completely due to lack of support (and impossibility of a 4E's "Pathfinder"). There will be hardly anyone switching to 5E and those who will try it will mostly say "still too much changes/not enough changes".

With that I have this weird feeling 5E is gonna be the final nail in D&D's coffin.

Which is tantamount to saying that they shouldn't even try. That they should have just given up and shut down D&D.

"Oh well, 4e isn't successful enough to be sustainable and we'll never pull the 3e fans from Paizo. Okay, good run everyone. Pack up your desks and have a good life."

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Let's keep in mind that web forums provide a very clouded view of how individual gamers approach an RPG. We're following a long playtest, breaking out individual components, and then discussing them. Those with strong opinions are going to talk more, which is inevitably going to lead to more negative discussions. Moreover, it's a situation the creates a strong backfire effect, where we might have a small leaning of opinion dramatically reinforced by the desire to defend it.

Personally, I'm rather positive about D&DNext as it stands. It's a rather streamlined 3rd edition that borrows inspiration from all editions in ways that I like. Sure, I don't like the direction feats and specialties have been moving in, and I'd like magical healing to be proportional, but overall, it promises to be the best version of D&D yet. Am I a minority? I don't know. Perhaps I'm more with the OSR crowd than I've previously realized. But I just want a version of D&D that is familiar, not too complicated, allows me to realize a wide array of characters, and is fun to play.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I would disagree strongly with this. There are a large, large number of old 1e and 2e fans, who want very different things and were disappointed by 3e. And there are likely quite a few players who are not perfectly satisfied with either edition.

This is me; 2E is my preferred game. I found 3E better in some ways and worse in others, and didn't care for 4E at all. I won't even speculate on how many people are in the same boat, but we're here. I'm still hoping for a new edition that I like better than the previous ones.

 

[Kalontas]

Which is tantamount to saying that they shouldn't even try. That they should have just given up and shut down D&D.

"Oh well, 4e isn't successful enough to be sustainable and we'll never pull the 3e fans from Paizo. Okay, good run everyone. Pack up your desks and have a good life."

No, it's tantamount to saying they should go one way or the other - trying to do both at once is doomed to fail.

 

[delericho]

To get people to convert (and ignoring the people who always play the newest edition) 5E has to be an improvement over what the people play now.

Not only does it need to be an improvement, it needs to be "better enough" to overcome the inertia of people who are mostly happy with what they have. Speaking for myself, that's exactly why I didn't move to Pathfinder - on balance, I felt it was an improvement over 3.5e, but it's just not "better enough" to make up for the sacrifice of the system mastery I've built over the years.

 

[Jester David]

No, it's tantamount to saying they should go one way or the other - trying to do both at once is doomed to fail.

Except they already tried to go the 4e route and that failed. And doing 4e over again is what they did with Essentials. And just trying to remake 3e would be doomed to failure as well, as they lose their current audience and have to lure an audience away from a company and game that makes them happy.

They can't beat Paizo at 3e, and they can't repeat 4e. So their real choices are to make a completely brand new game that goes in a completely different direction or they have to appeal to multiple audiences at once.
With one option they have a potential audience - a theoretical group of people that might buy the game. With the other option they have people who were their audience and have given them money before, they just have to win back as many as are willing to swap games. They don't have to get everyone back, but if they can appeal to a fraction of every audience and fans of all past editions that gives them a greater pool of fans to draw from. It's the best odds of success.