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]

But in 4E part of the problem, or challenge really, was tactical mastery. For players that think tactically, 4E combat is a blast, while for those that don't it is difficult, even demoralizing as you end up seeming ineffective compared to the Tactical Masters

Not really, no. A lot is made of 4e 'tactics,' but it's mostly just that the combat happens at that immediate, tactical level, and remains dynamic. It's one of those easy to learn (focus fire!) hard to master things. The spread in effectiveness between the not-particularly-powergamed striker who just spams a decent at-will, the masterful 'build' that exploits some system weakness, and the 'tactical master' whose warlord sets them both up is pretty minor (really, microscopic) compared to the spread between an optimized tier 1 class and a not-optimized-at-all tier 6.

maybe one difference is that A/D is almost more like a DM boon, while CA was something a PC could position for. Anyhow, A/D seems more flexible somehow, less specific - which I like, but some might find too indistinct.

You absolutely can jockey for Advantage. There's really two positive steps I see with Adv/Dis vs CA. Both are functionally just non-stacking situational bonuses. But, Adv uses a mechanic - the re-roll - that proved /very/ popular in 4e (the elven accuracy racial was one of the most lauded, and the Avenger's roll-twice-take-the-highest feature was also something players seemed to love). And, Dis applies the same non-stacking situational modifier concept on the negative side, consolidating penalties.

The strength and weakness of 4E combat is that it was so tactical, so abstract - combat was a game within the game, and you played your character like he was your avatar in a combat environment. 5E harkens back to theater of mind, where "I swing my sword" rather than "my character uses an encounter power."

That's a revisionist-history fiction I just don't understand. There is no 'harkenning back to theatre of the mind.' D&D was a wargame, in the ensuing 20 years, it never distanced itself much from that mindset. 1e gave everything in freak'n scale inches. Playing without minis or tokens of some sort and a surface was something you did if it was logistically impossible to use a playsurface.

Whether you approach your character in 1st person or 3rd is a matter of style. The mechanics have basically no bearing on it. Pretending that there was some golden age of RP when everyone played TotM, and it was 'real RP' and that age ended with 3.0 or 4e is just an artifact of the edition war. A lie repeated so often that some people seem to think it's true.

Well yes, that's part of it. It seems that 5E doesn't require nearly as much complexity as 3E and 4E did

That seeming is an illusion created by the familiar way 5e presents it's complexity.

Maybe there's a sub-conscious, perhaps even natural, life-cycle to an edition? 3E came out after 11 years of 2E, while 4E came out after 8 years of 2E. Maybe there's something about that decade mark that is "right"? I don't know, just a thought.

I certainly feel like that's the case. 3e was right on time. 4e was too early, 5e ridiculously so. It's hard to set aside the sense that we've been deprived of two or four years (respectively) of those editions.

For me, half-eds push the same button. 3.5 and Essentials each after barely two years were travesties of timing.

Sorry, I'm a results based kinda guy.

Just because you slipped through the wide net doesn't mean it wasn't a wide net.

I don't often meet people who praise things saying " this is so much worse than it used to be, but thank god it didn't stay the same."

You will meet people who rave over how great something is, /just/ because it's new, no matter how bad it is. Just like you will meet those who rant about how terrible something is, just because it's new no matter how good it actually is. It's a phenomenon so common as to be cliche.

 

[Gamgee]

Without starting a new topic where can I find the official characters sheets to print? The google reveals nothing.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I've introduced many people to D&D over the decades, and even the most casual player was able to wrap her head around playing a fighter within minutes.

Nod, the fighter was simplistic in most eds. In 3e, you wanted to point them at barbarians, instead, especially if they were building the character.

But think about how much nicer it'd be if the enthused new player who wanted to play a wizard /didn't/ have to be shunted to the simplistic option.

Introducing 3e to new players worked out pretty much the same (but pick feats like Weapon Focus for the player)

Nod. In 3e and 4e, with their many character-creation options, pregens were an excellent tool to introduce new players. 4e Encounters and CB-created pregens had a significant advantage in that everything you needed to play the character was on the sheet. You literally didn't need books at the table.

Even the simplest character in 4e (human slayer) requires the player to become familiar with a lot more game concepts.

Not with the level of familiarity you're talking about. You give someone a pregen and tell them what dice to roll, it really doesn't matter the system, they'll start picking it up. The main difference with 4e was, once he understands that simplified character, he's prettymuch ready to build and play any class, while, with the inconsistent class structures of other editions, he goes through the same learning process with any new class. A serious barrier to a player who has a concept he likes and wants to play that /isn't/ the 'training wheels class' for the ed in question.

We may have different definitions of a casual player, however. I'm using the term to describe a player who plays in a regular or semi-regular game but his or her involvement with D&D ends when the gaming session ends. The player doesn't own any D&D books, doesn't read anyone else's D&D books, and essentially doesn't even think about D&D when not playing.

A fair definition. I'd add that they're not likely to show up for every game - putting many other priorities first, so you can't count on re-enforcing what they learn in one session at the next. You need to be able to cope with a fluctuating group at the table, as well. You can't, for instance, have iron-clad niche-protection in that environment, because you can't count on having the right class at the table when his moment arrives and the fate of the party rests on undead being turned or a trap being disarmed or whatever. 4e proved ideal for that, IMX with Encounters - pretty nearly the full run of the program, actually, as I started with the Dark Sun season.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Your claim is "my impression is that it's successful." Mine is "It's too early to tell for all but the most meaningless values of successful, and I have some anecdotal evidence to the contrary." That's not a straight "You're wrong," that's a "show me why you think you're right," with a touch of "I disagree with some of your prior reasoning." Because we're having a discussion instead of just shooting our opinions at a wall, right?

5e is virtually guaranteed success in the business sense, because the bar /is/ so low this time. That'll feed all sorts of confirmation bias, of course.

 

[pemerton]

I don't think we could have predicted it would "fail

<snip>

But here's the point you seem to brush aside: How many books an edition sells in the roll-out is only one metric of success, and perhaps not even the most significant one in terms of long-term success

<sip>

whether or not an edition is a "success" depends upon
1. Whether those Hardcore Few keep buying books (which tells us how well the community embraces the edition),
2. whether lapsed players are drawn back in,
3. How many new players get into the game,
4. How many books are selling in year 2, 3, 4, etc.

I'm sure there are other factors, other metrics, but those are some at work.

<snip>

4E was a short-term success. Medium-term it was a mixed bag, but veering towards the negative. Long-term it was a disaster.

<snip>

there are encouraging signs that 5E will be more than just a short-term success, at least more so than 4E was (in the medium and long term). Of course we don't truly know yet, but things look promising.

<snip>

community perception is generally more positive than it was c. June, 2008.

I was comparing it to 4E around the same time - the summer of 2008, when the edition wars were already raging.

I am going to try and restate your reasoning as I understand it:

1. The commercial/publishing success of an edition depends upon ongoing sales over the medium-to-longer term;

2. A significant factor in this is purchases by the "hardcore few";

3. Another possible factor in this is drawing in new/lapsed players;

4. A useful piece of currently available evidence, that makes you optimistic about (2) and (3) in respect of 5e, is the lack of an "edition war"-style uproar from those members of the "hardcore few" who are not enthusiastic about 5e.​

I think (1) is probably uncontroversial, as far as RPG publishing is concerned.

As I posted, or at least implied, upthread, if (2) is true then that already tells us how small the RPG market is, which in my view is inconsistent with the idea of a new "Golden Era". A new "Golden Era" would falsify (2), because (3) would completely swamp (2).

If (2) is true, however, then it is likely that (3) is to some extent a function of (2) ie new/lapsed players are (re-)introduced by the hardcore few. Thus reinforcing the importance of catering to the hardcore few, if (2) is in fact true.

What about (4)? I think the presence of edition-war rhetoric can hurt (3), for reasons already given upthread: people trying to (re-)enter the hobby get caught up in a furore that is of no interest to them, but pushes them away. The smaller the overall player base, and the more important the "hardcore few", then the more likely this is to matter.

But does the absence of edition-war rhetoric serve as a useful predictor for (2)? If it does, that is a sad thing, because a corollary is that many/most people can't choose not to play a game without feeling the need to launch salvos against that game and those who are playing it.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

In other words, what if the Mearls Plan doesn't succeed and the brand doesn't blow up with a massive new generation of players storming the gates to roll their first d20? What if none or few of the legendary "20 million" D&D boomers from the 80s doesn't come back?

I will be very, very surprised if the grandiose plans of WotC, Hasbro, Mearls, etc. come to fruition. We never likely to see a return to the numbers of players (particularly new ones) that D&D had in the early days.

The same goes for their big multi-media push. I really doubt it will do as well as they expect. This has all been tried before, and never has worked well.

 

[pemerton]

If 4E was actually a success, as you seem to imply here ("by any sane rubric"), why was it canned?

I defer to others for any speculation about what actually motivated WotC. But in the abstract (and with numbers made up - in particular, I don't know what degree of return on investment commercial publishers generally expect):

If the sane standard for a successful RPG is (say) $10 million sales and a 5% return on investment, and WotC's standards for maintaining a product line with a dedicated staff is (say) $50 million sales and a 10% return on investment, then WotC will cut a RPG even if by the sane standards it is successful (eg because making $15 million sales with a 6% return on investment).

 

[pickin_grinnin]

I don't thinkit will be a new golden era and it may be struggling to even get a silver era (3.0 of D&D). Reception has been better than 4E but it is to early to call it one way or another.

I think the "success" will be easier to judge after all three books have come out and a year passes (after the release of the last one).

 

[pickin_grinnin]

If we look at a character like Drizzt...he probably has as much name recognition as Iron Man did before the movies...which in the public arena was almost none.

Far, far more people were at least aware of the name "Iron Man" than have ever heard of Drizzt, even before the movies.

 

[prosfilaes]

As for the balance thing, I've had problems in Pathfinder, but my biggest problem was a halfling rogue using a sling to (try to) do d3 damage at 8th level. While the character was built suboptimally, I'm sure I could have handed her to any other player and they could have played the exact same character and dealt a lot more damage. Even were the character completely balanced with the others, what system is going to stop the player from using a suboptimal weapon or suboptimal tactics?

But think about how much nicer it'd be if the enthused new player who wanted to play a wizard /didn't/ have to be shunted to the simplistic option.

Not for me. I would like at some point to get to play Thog, in character, and Thog not know anything about "dailies". Thog maybe hit harder and wilder, but that extent of Thog thought about tactics.

Not with the level of familiarity you're talking about. You give someone a pregen and tell them what dice to roll, it really doesn't matter the system, they'll start picking it up. The main difference with 4e was, once he understands that simplified character, he's prettymuch ready to build and play any class, while, with the inconsistent class structures of other editions, he goes through the same learning process with any new class.

Except that AC, saves and a whole bunch of other features worked the same across all classes in the other editions. Certainly the claim that you must learn any non-4E edition of D&D de novo with any new class is silly. How much difference the homogenized classes of 4E really make, I don't know; my problem in playing an Inquisitor in Pathfinder is not in understanding how the new mechanics work, but rather in understand when to use them and why.