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

[Tony Vargas]

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 average duration someone who plays D&D sticks with the game is longer than 4 or 5 years.

That certainly matches my experience with 4e. At the FLGS, there's a lot of college-age or 30 somethings, and the occasional kid. Only a few old grognards like myself. OTOH, in the 2e era, D&Ders were mostly my age (30 somethings, admittedly, at the time), with younger players gravitating towards CCGs and LARPGs. d20 only turned that around to an extent, the hobby still seemed older at the time. Outside the context of an FLGS - at conventions, and home games, it also seems like the hobby tends to be aging.

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

If someone is curious about the game, they just might check out the web-site or google it. If they do, and there's an edition war going on, they may very well be influenced by what they read. My point, though, was that WotC doesn't have to worry about new players it's latest ed repels starting an edition war - losing them as future customers, sure, but not starting a snowballing campaign of negativity. Existing players, OTOH, have a record of doing just that if they don't see what they want to see. So, that's a big reason for WotC to tailor the release to the 'squeaky wheels' of their base.

 

[Mercurius]

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....

OK, fair enough - and I don't disagree with you. 5E is certainly harkening back to a more traditional play style than 4E, and without the "bloat load" of customizations of 3.X...so far, at least.

I think Adv/Dis is a very strong innovation, by the way, in that it is a rule that adequately folds in a bunch of stuff in a very simple, clean way. The type of thing that makes one wonder, "Why didn't they think of that before?"

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).

I think you make a good point that when it comes down to it, 5E isn't that much simpler. But again, perception is key. A little bit goes a long way.

I think one key difference is feat bloat, which was one of the things that drove me crazy about 4E - scrolling through hundreds upon hundreds of feats in Character Builder. By making feats fewer but more powerful, 5E might reduce the total number to a fraction of previous editions, even in a few years.

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

Don't forget the "auto mechanic principle" (or any technical, mechanical profession). What looks intuitive and easy to someone trained and knowledgeable is absolutely impenetrable to a lay person.

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.

Well DM Fiat is always there, regardless of edition. But what I'm hoping for from 5E is something I found was lacking in 3.x, that I would have liked to see, which is what Mearls called the complexity dial. 5E starts at a lower "base complexity" than 3.X or 4E, giving a broader range. Both 3.X and 4E forced everyone to play at a higher level of complexity, which worked many but not as much for casual players. This became exacerbated by system mastery issues, as I described in a previous post.

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.

Right, exactly.

 

[Herschel]

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.

Again, you’re using overly-simplistic stereotypes as belief. Personally, I like “getting dirty” with a sword in my hand and up close & personal with the enemy. If your backside is in the fire, as it were, I like to go in and pull you out. I like shaping the battlefield. If I’m the “master of combat” I want to actually have the tools to fulfill that roll besides having a sheet of stats for a fictitious whack-a-mole player.
Conversely, what makes people think there aren’t players who want to channel The Evil bomber What Bombs at Midnight? Some players just want to see the “world” burn.

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.

Again, belief vs. actuality. System mastery in early 4E wasn't a big deal. It was only somewhat in very early 3E. As teh system grew, it became more an issue.

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.

Honestly look at the Legolas action focal points in LoTR: They were crappy CG to try and emulate the other-worldly elven grace. Peter Jackson consciously limited magic and elfishness in shooting the films.

 

[Haffrung]

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.

To players who don't enjoy reading about D&D for its own sake, what happens at the table is the game. If they don't experience something playing at the table, then it's not a problem. And there are a lot more reasons for stopping around 10th level than imbalance. PC death, TPKs, keeping a group together that long (reaching even 10th level might take a couple years of weekly play in AD&D), or simply a desire to start something new. The 5E devs had made it clear their goal was to fix issues that came up at the table, rather than issues that were hobby-horses of RPG forums. That's what the massive playtest was about. They tried an edition designed from the ground up on a foundation of theorycraft and it didn't meet their expectations. They weren't going to go that route again with 5E.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think Adv/Dis is a very strong innovation, by the way, in that it is a rule that adequately folds in a bunch of stuff in a very simple, clean way. The type of thing that makes one wonder, "Why didn't they think of that before?"

In a sense, they did. When 3e consolidated myriad resolution mechanics into d20 vs DC; when 4e consolidated combat modifiers and conditions into Combat Advantage. Likewise, re-rolls, or roll-take-the-highest mechanics are nothing new.

Just as bounded accuracy is like the treadmill slowed down, Adv/Dis is a lot like CA, a non-stacking combat modifier.

I think you make a good point that when it comes down to it, 5E isn't that much simpler. But again, perception is key. A little bit goes a long way.

It's just smaller (though, for a new edition, it's got a lot packed into it) and more familiar. And, yes, perception is more important than reality in these things.

By making feats fewer but more powerful, 5E might reduce the total number to a fraction of previous editions, even in a few years.

Sure, changing granularity has effects like that. OTOH, it makes those feat decisions more critical - doubly so because you can't re-train, so it's back to planning 'builds' like in 3e.

In early 4e, there were not really must-have feats (a nice way of saying 'wow, none of these feats do much'), so you could take whatever fit your character, and not be behind the curve. The introduction of feat-taxes was more damaging, in that sense, then the proliferation of feats.

Don't forget the "auto mechanic principle" (or any technical, mechanical profession). What looks intuitive and easy to someone trained and knowledgeable is absolutely impenetrable to a lay person.

Exactly. By falling back on familiar structures, 5e feels intuitive to folks who have dealt with the originals for decades.

Well DM Fiat is always there, regardless of edition. But what I'm hoping for from 5E is something I found was lacking in 3.x, that I would have liked to see, which is what Mearls called the complexity dial. 5E starts at a lower "base complexity" than 3.X or 4E, giving a broader range.

Basic 5e presents a range of class complexity that exceeds even that in the 3e PH. The Champion fighter is dead-simple compared even to the 3e Barbarian, while the Wizard and Cleric are complex even compared to their tier-1 counterparts. I'm not sure if that's the point you were making, though.

Both 3.X and 4E forced everyone to play at a higher level of complexity, which worked many but not as much for casual players. This became exacerbated by system mastery issues, as I described in a previous post.

You really have to see new players trying 4e to believe how well it worked for them, and for casual play. It was deceptive, because it changed so much that, to an oldtimer, it felt almost impenetrable, but to new players, it was an open book - clear and consistent.

And, while it was, like 3e, hard to master, the rewards for system mastery were intentionally minimized, so you didn't have these balance issues with new players entering established groups or power-players bombing casual play.

3e and 5e, though, share a similar flavor of complexity, so it's easy to go from one to the other without so much effort. 5e's impressive achievement is that it's also pretty natural to go from AD&D to 5e Basic. AD&Ders somehow so out of touch that they've never been exposed to 3e MCing might blow a gasket when /that's/ introduced, but that's about the only obstacle.

 

[Beleriphon]

Honestly look at the Legolas action focal points in LoTR: They were crappy CG to try and emulate the other-worldly elven grace. Peter Jackson consciously limited magic and elfishness in shooting the films.

I don't know, Drizzt's big thing is being a bad ass sword fighter. That completely works in a Star Wars movie (thinking Darth Maul here), so there's not reason it can't work in a straight up fantasy movie.

 

[BryonD]

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.

Agreed.

I hear what you are saying but I think your argument is weakened by focusing only on one side of what stimulated edition warring. It takes two to tango!

Apologies if I focused too much on responding to the other side and implying a balance. I actually had the "two to tango" phrase in my mind. The edition wars took on a life of their own and a there is plenty of blame to toss around.

True, true. I think the other part, though, is that for those that don't like 5E, well, move on a play something else. What seems to happen with each edition is that there's a segment of fans from the prior edition who feel like the publishers of D&D killed it and took their stuff. Maybe this is unavoidable. While no one is actually making 4E fans stop playing 4E, I can understand how it would be frustrating when the company and community moves on from your preferred version of the game.

Again, I agree. But this did happen to some D&D fans when 3E came along and the degree of "war" was nothing comparable. 3E brought radical change to D&D. People who didn't like the change were not called closed-minded haters who simply hated change because it was change or of whining about not getting their way. It DOES take two here and there was plenty of "oh my GOD, these are radical changes, this sux, the shot my game, etc..." But the tolerance of alternative opinions was largely lacking. Or at least the outspoken aggressive outrage at alternative opinions was every bit as vocal as the outspoken aggressive outrage over the changes themselves. So the idea that the simple presence or absence of "whining" is fundamental to the conversation fails to get the foundation.

I really like what I see of 5E. But if someone loved a prior edition of D&D and doesn't see that same "feel" in 5E. That is a fair opinion. Respecting it as such would be a good lesson learned.

 

[BryonD]

Simply not true. D&D tried to appeal to D&Ders who had long been complaining about the known failings of the system, to new players and casual players (via the Encounters program), to boardgamers (via games like Castle Ravenloft), and to CRPG/MMO players with DDI and the promise of the VTT. (thus the frequent, if off-base comparison to an MMO or a board game).

Actually, it was simply true.

You ARE right that they "tried" to appeal to a larger group.

While it talks that talk, it doesn't actually deliver.

Is this where I'm supposed to ask you why you hate change so much?

Seriously, I *do* respect that this is a completely valid opinion and anyone who shares it should be happy with their range of options for changing 5E to what they want or playing something else. Play what you like!!!!!

 

[Tovec]

Summoning [MENTION=81511]Mercurious[/MENTION]

Give $100 million to at least a moderately well known director to make an Icewind Dale trilogy with Drizzt, and you'd have a blockbuster avalanche of new D&D fans starting at age 10+.

Relying on "books" to support the gaming model, as Mearls pointed out, does not work very well in the long run.

Wouldn't something like this work regardless of the books? I mean it doesn't matter in the slightest what edition we are in, movies will follow their own rules (if they have rules at all) and will (at best) rely on old material that made the grade.

Look at the DC animated movies based on the comic books. Currently DC is in another reboot of the universe (called "New 52" among other terms) but several of the movies released during this new 52 era of comic books were all modeled on the pre-52 universe stories. I would presume DnD movies would be similar, like Nebulous says, "Icewind Dale trilogy" would be system-independent. The major requirement is that the movies be GOOD. A few good DnD movies and there might be a chance to get to DnD's version "Guardians of the Galaxy" but until we get some good ones with semi-well known properties we are stuck in neutral.

So, I think the concept of a 5e golden age, or renaissance or whatever you want to call it, is a non-issue as far as DnD movies are concerned. It might matter some years later but that will still only be based on the new fluff that comes out in the mean time. Though in that regard I still expect them to avoid the disjointed parts in favour of the joined parts. Unless DnD/WotC/Hasbro needs the money from 5e DnD, I don't think it really matters if the game is a success or an abject failure.

 

[Keldryn]

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.

This was my experience with 4e as well. In my group of four players, one really got into tactical thinking and finding the most optimal way to manage his resources. Another player liked having a lot of options, but she took forever to make a decision every round. The other two players pretty much just stuck to using a single at-will power every round, because they found managing a whole suite of AEDU powers (and all of the rules they interested with) to be overwhelming -- at 1st level.

The tactically-minded player eagerly anticipated each combat encounter and was enjoying watching the battle play out, even when it wasn't his turn. The rest of the players quickly began to dread getting into battle, as it took too long and they weren't interested in watching how the tactical situation developed.

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.

I absolutely agree with this. My wife had never played D&D until I started that 4e game (though she had played a number of console RPGs), and she mainly kept playing because she had been at home alone with our then-newborn daughter and craved some adult interaction. When I ran what was intended to be a one-off game using my old '83 Basic Set, my players all loved it -- except the one tactically-minded player, who found it limiting and kind of boring. He was also the only player to have a character die. Twice, in fact. After that game, my wife said to me "now I finally get why you guys like playing this game."

In my 4e game, only one 1 out of 4 players owned any 4e books; the 2 most casual players had absolutely no interest in reading a D&D book on their own time.