D&D 5E I think we can safely say that 5E is a success, but will it lead to a new Golden Era?

[Haffrung]

In my experience, I have only seen the problem mentioned on internet forums. I'm sure your experiences are different. As to whether either of our experiences matches up to the experiences of millions of other gamers, the majority of whom have never even heard of EN World and don't have a voice here? I wouldn't even hazard a guess.

This. In general, I've seen little correlation between what people fixate over on RPG forums and what people care about playing the game in real life. Granted, my experience is limited to 30-40 players in 7-8 groups over 35 years.

When people say they haven't had a problem with imbalance in the game, surely it's more likely that they're telling the truth than that they'd deluded, lying, or brain-dead.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think this remains to be seen. Further, I'm not sure I agree with what seems like a clear value judgement on your part, as if 5E is entirely void of innovations and lacking in the improvements that the prior edition(s) made.

Sorry, didn't mean to imply that. It's just that any innovations are being implemented in a "cautious and measured" way. You can be careful how you innovate, afterall. Adv/Dis, for instance, is innovative, but, it really just consolidates a lot of potential modifiers that might stack up into one fairly impactful one, so it's a fairly 'small' innovation that might not piss too many people off. Of course, even a tiny thing (not even that innovative), like DoaM on /one/ Combat Style could cause the fanbase to nerdrage....

If anything, I like the fact that it is a simpler game at its core than the previous couple editions, and that it doesn't require the complex web of sub-systems and optimizations of the last couple editions.

It's really not if you look at it objectively. The real nucleus of the system is just the d20 mechanic, exactly like the last two eds - though, yes, that's a serious consolidation of varied resolution sub-systems of prior eds, a big simplification for folks coming at 5e direct from an ed of AD&D or classic D&D, certainly. If you widen the view to the core 3 books, though, you really don't have much of a simplification. Bounded accuracy 'proficiency' gives you smaller numbers than BAB or the 4e "treadmill," but it's not that functionally different. It's less complex and more consistent than in 3e - where you had ranks for skills, BAB for attacks, and good/bad saves all advancing at different rates. It's about the same complexity as the treadmill, but a little less consistent, since /only/ proficient elements advance. Then you have the classes, the variation among Sorcerer, Wizard, and Warlock is about as complex as it was in 3e, but each is individually /more/ complex. The fighter, while having a blindingly simple build, is more complex as a whole, because of the three varied sub-classes. 5e also presents /more/ classes in the PH than ever before, also adding to complexity and rules density (since each class - and occassionally sub-class - is made mechanically distinct).

All that complexity might not seem that bad if you find it familiar or intuitive, though. But, it is there.

We won't really know until the DMG comes out, but the big innovation of 5E seems to be its flexibility and ability to customize different campaigns with modular options (I for one would like to see if they have something akin to the AEDU paradigm as an option, although that might be too difficult and complex to paste onto the 5E core).

We've been hearing that promise for a long time now, but there's nothing about the actual structure of the game that suggests it'll be anymore customizeable than D&D always has been via the simple expedient of DM fiat.

Let me clarify. I don't think 5E will have grindiness, but that it may have its own quality that leads to tedium for many. I can tell you that while I grew to dislike AEDU aesthetically, as too "video gamey," it certainly made for fun tactical play and I'm going to miss Splitting the Tree, and so forth. I am wondering if some of the martial classes will seem boring at some point, which will require splats to flesh them out.

That makes a little more sense. Yeah. 5e becoming grindy would be like 4e developing severe class balance problems: it's one of the major things the ed was designed in reaction to.

 

[Tony Vargas]

This. In general, I've seen little correlation between what people fixate over on RPG forums and what people care about playing the game in real life.

You mean like how all the things people said in the course of the edition war didn't reflect how anyone actually played the game?

 

[Haffrung]

It can be an issue, yes, since they break up the flow of the game, sometimes in ways that seem arbitrary. Worse, though, are random-sized encounters. String a few planned encounters together and they can be tailored to present the level of challenge you think will work best for your players. String random encounters together (as HotDQ does) and you could end up with a series of trivial or deadly ones - and either bored players or dead PCs (and, either way, give a poor impression of what the game can deliver). Obviously, one can over-ride the dice and insert more appropriate encounters, but, why, then, present random ones in the first place?

Random, unexpected challenges of varying danger are a feature for some people, not a bug. And it's simplicity itself to ignore them.

4e did, IMX, retain new players better than any other version of D&D I'd seen (everything except 0e). But, it couldn't /attract/ any more than usual, and that's really not that many.

I disagree. Every edition of D&D attracts a large number of new gamers. Players relentlessly attrit out of the hobby, and new ones take their place. WotC recently remarked that the average age of D&D players is college-aged. Don't let the fact that RPG forums are dominated by 30-50 year old hardcores who have been playing for 15+ years fool you into thinking they're representative of the D&D market. I'd be surprised if the median duration players stick with D&D is longer than 4 or 5 years.

No, but new fans are unlikely to wage an edition war.

New fans are unlikely to be aware of an edition war, let alone be influenced by it.

 

[Herschel]

I think historical context is important when comparing the community response to 3E and 4E. 3E re-invigorated the game and community, drawing in many lapsed players with a cleaned up rules set that didn't change the fundamental qualities of D&D that people had loved for decades. 4E, on the other hand, took an entirely different route both in terms of design and aesthetics which turned a lot of people off.

Again, belief vs. fact (and edition warring to boot). What about all those lapsed players like me who gave up on 3E and returned with 4E? Apparently we don't count? Your post tries to present your own aesthetics as the be-all, end-all factual evidence while showing a clear bias.

The fact remains that thus far the successful run is if you're going to come up with a new system, you need to do so every few years so your sales cycle spike covers overhead or you need to rip off another system so you don't have that overhead on your books. The edition "treadmill" is common across the hobby, and D&D for years was the slowest to adapt (see: TSR's downfall).

 

[WayneW]

On-line? PbP, VTT or something else?

Roll20 & Skype

The dynamic you're talking about still very much existed among 'Roles' when classes were better-balanced, so no issue there.

The idea of class balance swinging around like a pendulum, but balancing out over a longer window - over a 'day' of challenges or even a whole campaign /is/ a valid way of achieving balance, often called a 'balance of imbalances,' it's just a pretty poor one. It fails to deliver balance when the game doesn't continue long enough to give everyone their moment in the sun, or when the campaign themes call for more of one sort of challenge than another, and so forth. It works only for a very specific, carefully-DM-managed playstyle. More robust ways of achieving balance work for a wider range of styles and campaigns.

I understand where you are going with this. I'm not sure perfect balance can ever be truly achieved. And even if they did the rolls may have something different to say about the outcome.

Here you are missing something. Modern versions of D&D give encounter-creation guidelines. If they're 'balanced,' they given consistent results, meaning that encounters designed to be easy will be easy if played straight, and others designed to be overwhelming will be overwhelming unless the PCs pull out something /really/ clever or lucky. It doesn't mean that encounters will all present the same challenge - far from it, the DM has a lot more freedom to explore the edges of what the PCs can handle.

Sounds like you want complete control of the challenge level of each encounter which is fine. I still think the random encounters outside of DM control will add some interesting play.

 

[Mercurius]

It was easily an option, but to this point, they botched it completely. They could have simply used the Theme system to add the AEDU powers (or whatever) vs. add-ons like they had set up.

I don't quite follow. Or rather, I don't see how it isn't still possible, at least to some degree.

We're already seeing that. I find martial characters boring thus far. I lik ethe achtype, but hate the implementation thus far.

Not sure what you meant to type there? "like the archetype?"

Anyhow, I hear you but think this is easily rectified. And the key point is, it is easy to add on complexity than it is to subtract it. 5E martial characters really just continue from Essentials martial characters, and of course pre-4E martial characters. I think the whole AEDU thing appealed especially to the type of player who liked to play a wizard and think tactically, for the type of player who just wanted to hang out, eat pretzels and bash orcs, it was a nightmare. I had one poor guy who just didn't get it and was always kind of miserable because he would watch as another, very tactically minded player, would do ungodly things with his rogue.

So 5E has reduced the need for the kind of system mastery that had, I think, distanced many casual players. I mean, it really is the first new edition of D&D that 40-somethings who haven't played since high school in the 80s could pick up and not feel like they were playing some weird hybrid of D&D, anime, and World of Warcraft. There are folks out there that haven't played D&D in decades, who would like to play again, but don't have an easy point of entry. 5E is, if not easy, easier than 3.x and 4E were.

The problem with Drizzt is he's a super-dextrous Dark Elf. Giving a wig to Oded Fehr isn't quite going to cut it. That doesn't work so well on-screen as a focal point. Even the successful movies who use oddball races have humans as a focal point. Notice where the short humans are really the focal point are the scenes where it's basically just them and other shorties?

Well Peter Jackson (and Orlando Bloom) pulled off Legolas quite well. To be honest, I think the biggest problem with Drizzt would be his skin. Realms elves don't have African heritage racial features, yet using a more elfy looking white guy to play a dark-skinned character could be just a bit controversial.

Oded Fehr is an interesting idea, although maybe a bit too macho in his chiseled handsomeness. Someone online recommended Michael Early, who has interesting features and light eyes and could work.

 

[Herschel]

When people say they haven't had a problem with imbalance in the game, surely it's more likely that they're telling the truth than that they'd deluded, lying, or brain-dead.

Or what's even been admitted on these forums: People don't play the "whole" game. In 1E and 2E, we simply stopped around 10th levelbecause things were really getting borked. Many people admit they only play the game to around 8th level, which is only 1/3 to 1/2 of the regular gaming space. Quitting before teh imbalance becomes an issue does not mean the imbalance doesn't exist, just that "you've" avoided it by not playing that part of the game.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I understand where you are going with this. I'm not sure perfect balance can ever be truly achieved.

I am sure that perfect balance can never be achieved. Perfection is like that. That's no reason not to attempt to improve - indeed, it's a reason to /never stop trying to improve/.

Sounds like you want complete control of the challenge level of each encounter which is fine. I still think the random encounters outside of DM control will add some interesting play.

Nothing is outside the DM's control, it's just a matter of the quality of the tools he's using to exercise that control. If you can make fine adjustments, great, if you can intentionally introduce wild swings, great, if attempts to make fine adjustments result in wild swings, not so great.

 

[Mercurius]

Again, belief vs. fact (and edition warring to boot). What about all those lapsed players like me who gave up on 3E and returned with 4E? Apparently we don't count? Your post tries to present your own aesthetics as the be-all, end-all factual evidence while showing a clear bias.

The fact remains that thus far the successful run is if you're going to come up with a new system, you need to do so every few years so your sales cycle spike covers overhead or you need to rip off another system so you don't have that overhead on your books. The edition "treadmill" is common across the hobby, and D&D for years was the slowest to adapt (see: TSR's downfall).

There is very little more annoying in online RPG discussions than false accusations of edition warring - which I think is a form of edition warring, to be honest. Lay off it, Herschel - I have been VERY CAREFUL to not edition war by not saying ANYTHING negative about the qualities of this or that edition beyond observations about community perceptive and my own aesthetic preferences. So please don't falsely accuse me of it - there is nothing in that quote that is saying anything negative about 4E beyond the observation that many people founds some of its aesthetics and design choices off-putting.

I played 4E for years and greatly enjoyed it, so your "clear bias" is projection. Now of course I do have a bias, and it is towards my own biases! So to quote Steve Martin, forgiiiiive me! I'm not absolutizing my own biases, but am making generalized observations.