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

[BryonD]

To make it clear what I think:

* I think it is too early to confidently predict that 5e will enjoy enduring commercial success of the sort that [MENTION=59082]Mercurius[/MENTION] has described upthread (ie a steady stream of supplements sold to a large base).

Strongly agree

* Furthermore, I think that Mearls has as much as said that that is not their goal for D&D.

Clearly true

* I think that explaining 4e's commercial problems by reference to "it was a radical departure from D&D" is post-hoc. It is simply a reiteration of the fact that 4e experienced commercial difficulties. It doesn't tell us anything about what was or was not appealing about 4e.

As they say, hindsight *is* 20/20.

Though I must agree that specifying the "radical departure" point does selectively frame the debate. One could easily call 3E a "radical departure" from prior editions. The devil is in the details. If it had been a radical departure, but overwhelmingly loved by the fan base, then the commercial problems would have, obviously, been avoided and the "departure" would be a non-issue.

To give a concrete example of the 3rd point: edition warriors often complain about healing surges and extended rests; but those features of 4e carry on into 5e (though without the integration of surges into the broader framework of the combat and magic mechanics). Hence we can infer that healing surges and extended rests were not too radical a departure from D&D.

This deeply misses several points.
One, 4E *clearly* had a devoted fan base. One of 5E's stated goals is appealing to all prior editions. Thus the idea that nods to 4E are present is beyond obvious. So retaining elements of 4E only speaks to that effort

Two, 4E was hard coded. 5E is promoted as being highly hackable. Anything a player doesn't like can be removed an replaced.

Three, 4E had a wide range of "departures". Any of these departures could, and did, motivate people to turn away. 4E healing was a big deal. But there are plenty of people with no issue with that, but still didn't like some other departure. You can't asses the degree of departure and its impact without looking at it cumulatively.

Four, if your logic holds on a case by case basis, then all we need to show is one thing they DID change back (Great Wheel) to "prove" you wrong. I don't agree with this logic. But it follows from your reasoning.

The only real way to work out what aspects of 4e were widely unpopular is to examine 5e closely to see what bits of 4e do or do not carry through. And even then, I'm not confident about numbers. For instance, if playtesting shows that 70% of people don't care about X, 10% really want it and 20% really hate it, then WotC has an incentive to expunge it from the game even though it wasn't really unpopular at all.

Furthermore, and this relates to Scott Rouse's post linked above, we don't know all the circumstances around Essentials. It was obvious at the time, and I was not the only person saying it, that Essentials was a publishing fiasco from the point of view of existing 4e production - because it is a combination of supplements, feat errata and monster errata masquerading as a reboot. It also baffles me that anyone thought it would help new players, given how needlessly wordy it is (though 5e continues this trend - maybe I just don't know what new players are looking for). Was Essentials a last gasp to try and reach unrealistic sale? In which case, it's failure to do then left the existing 4e market in a pretty disastrous shape largely independently of how that market might otherwise have been travelling.

Finally, I continue to hold that if the absence of edition warring is a mark of success, then the market is too small to make a "golden era" possible - because in a golden era, no one cares what a handful of hardcore fans are saying one way or the other, and their voices are irrelevant to overall market performance.

You seem to be mixing and matching what we can and can't know. We won't know the fine, firmly quantified numbers for who does and does not like 5E by RAW, or who like 5E with *this* or *that* element house-ruled into oblivion any more than we know the firmly quantified numbers for the 4E market.

I don't think the absence of edition warring is a mark of success.

 

[Sadras]

But if community splintering were really a big reason behind the jump to another edition, adding another "faction," so to speak, seems like it'd be a major gamble. They'd have to make up for lost 4e players, bring back a bunch of fans of other games like PF, and get a sizable number of new and lapsed players.

Just to place things in perspective, I'm sure you were aware of all the columns, letters written on WoTC's websites by Mearls, Cooke and others within the design team about their goal to unify the player base. That reflects that the lead designers of 5e were well aware of the fractioned player base. That means that they would rather gamble everything even their loyal 4e players than continue with 4e as it was, and all this then on the heels of Essentials. ON THE HEELS OF ESSENTIALS. It means that even reinventing the 4e system was not enough to recapture their target market - they needed a new edition. It is that simple. You are welcome to ignore all the evidence.

To claim that 4e failed as a system, that would be false, but to claim that 4e failed its target market, that would appear true given WoTC's direction.

And as I said upthread, its not that D&D 4e was a bad game, IMO it was not versatile enough for its playerbase. We are a finicky bunch, from DMs to players.

 

[Siberys]

[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]

I read it, and I read it very, very carefully. Nothing in that post has any information about why 4e was dropped. As I said, Scott Rouse would have been off the team for a long time at the point that post was made. All that post says is that there is community splintering. We've known that since well before that post was made.

Let's imagine a scenario;

- Assume that the 11 million number for Paizo's yearly earnings is accurate.
- Assume, for the sake of argument, that 4e pulled in 22 million in a year.
- Assume that, unlike IRL, 4e was a massive success and suffered no community issues, enough that the 11 mil/year that would have gone to Paizo went to 4e instead, for a total of 33 mil/year.

In that scenario, 4e is a huge outlier in the industry, making a ridiculous amount of money. Now, here's the thing; even with a track record like that, even with no big competitor and a happily unfractured community, 4e is /still/ in danger of being canned by Hasbro, because it's 17 mil under projections! Perhaps it would have been able to ride long enough that Hasbro would lift its brand requirements - we know that 5e doesn't have to worry about them, so that's conceivable. Maybe, IRL, the community issues, on top of failing to meet Hasbro's brand standards, were what finally tipped the scales. We don't know.

And, see, that's what I've been trying to communicate here. Those things are plausible, but we have no evidence that they actually happened. So don't present it as fact, because at this point it's purely speculation. The ONLY thing we can present as fact is the brand requirements, and those are plenty sufficient to explain the edition change. Presenting it as fact is misleading.
[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] - Sorry if I spoke for you. Didn't mean to put words in your mouth.

 

[Umbran]

J It means that even reinventing the 4e system was not enough to recapture their target market - they needed a new edition. It is that simple. You are welcome to ignore all the evidence.

Except that "recapture the target market" may be a vast oversimplification of the goals here.

It seems the long-term goal is to make profit of the *brand*. Not the RPG, specifically, but the Dungeons and Dragons name as a whole. Now, selling a lot of game books is *awesome*, don't get me wrong. But if the long-term point is to get people to buy stuff with "D&D" on it, then whether you actually buy or play the current game is secondary to getting you to have a generally positive impression of the brand.

If they had reinvented the 4e system, then all those 3e players would be left with a negative impression of the brand. This has *nothing* to do with how good the game is, or its technical qualities. Sticking with 4e was not going to be smart for that new long-term goal.

Going for a 5e was a risk, I'll grant you - they did run the risk of fragmenting the players even further. That's what the massive playtesting was for. Sure, some diehards still claim that was a sham, but the bulk of rational folks are probably looking at the new rules, and realizing that yes, WotC is honestly trying to be inclusive. They may not succeed at hitting your own personal desires for the game, but the effort taken makes that seem a lot more like just the limitations of the reality of making games, not so much "WotC is leaving me out in the cold on purpose."

And with that, the long-term goal is served.

 

[Siberys]

Just to place things in perspective, I'm sure you were aware of all the columns, letters written on WoTC's websites by Mearls, Cooke and others within the design team about their goal to unify the player base. That reflects that the lead designers of 5e were well aware of the fractioned player base. That means that they would rather gamble everything even their loyal 4e players than continue with 4e as it was, and all this then on the heels of Essentials. ON THE HEELS OF ESSENTIALS. It means that even reinventing the 4e system was not enough to recapture their target market - they needed a new edition. It is that simple. You are welcome to ignore all the evidence.

To claim that 4e failed as a system, that would be false, but to claim that 4e failed its target market, that would appear true given WoTC's direction.

And as I said upthread, its not that D&D 4e was a bad game, IMO it was not versatile enough for its playerbase. We are a finicky bunch, from DMs to players.

Wanting 5e to unify the playerbase doesn't necessarily mean that 4e was dropped for the purpose of "recaptur[ing] their target market." The switch could have been made for any of a number of reasons, including a purely company-policy directed one, and they still could have had unification as a stated goal. I mean, that seems like a pretty straightforward positive marketing pitch, and regardless of when it came out or what 5e ended up looking like, I have a hard time believing they wouldn't say they were trying to unify the community.

In that part of my post I was explicitly describing my gut feeling, and I made it clear that was the case. And my gut feeling is that they're playing it too close to the chest to bring in the numbers they need. For example, anecdotally, in my area I'm really the only one doing any talking about 5e, and it's because I run a game store. Anybody else is sticking to their existing game of choice - 4e for a few, PF for most, and something altogether different for the small remainder.

Anyways, like I said, this part of my post was purely gut feeling. I offer no evidence beyond anecdotes and am not trying to argue a particular case for this part, and I tried very hard to make sure that was clear.

 

[Imaro]

Let's imagine a scenario;

- Assume that the 11 million number for Paizo's yearly earnings is accurate.
- Assume, for the sake of argument, that 4e pulled in 22 million in a year.
- Assume that, unlike IRL, 4e was a massive success and suffered no community issues, enough that the 11 mil/year that would have gone to Paizo went to 4e instead, for a total of 33 mil/year.

In that scenario, 4e is a huge outlier in the industry, making a ridiculous amount of money. Now, here's the thing; even with a track record like that, even with no big competitor and a happily unfractured community, 4e is /still/ in danger of being canned by Hasbro, because it's 17 mil under projections! Perhaps it would have been able to ride long enough that Hasbro would lift its brand requirements - we know that 5e doesn't have to worry about them, so that's conceivable. Maybe, IRL, the community issues, on top of failing to meet Hasbro's brand standards, were what finally tipped the scales. We don't know.

Of course then we have to wonder, if there are no pressures now and 4e only failed because it didn't reach Hasbro's goals but did great with it's target market and made (comparatively speaking) a ton of money... why not continue with 4e as the base for the next edition... why not keep powers, AEDU structure for classes, A strong tactical focus, etc. I'm not claiming I know for sure but [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] has been pretty insistent that Hasbro's goals being the reason is obvious or apparent from the evidence and I disagree...

And, see, that's what I've been trying to communicate here. Those things are plausible, but we have no evidence that they actually happened. So don't present it as fact, because at this point it's purely speculation. The ONLY thing we can present as fact is the brand requirements, and those are plenty sufficient to explain the edition change. Presenting it as fact is misleading.

But you don't have proof that the brand requirement caused 4e to be shut down... maybe you think it's more likely... but the issue I am having with your ( and [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] 's) statements, are that you call out other reasons for lacking definite proof but you yourself don't have any and yet you continue to present your suspected reason for 4e's ending as "fact"... it's more than a tad hypocritical.

 

[Siberys]

Look, at this point we're going around in circles. Fine, I don't have any proof. But the only internal info we do have - that, yes, does not constitute proof - is that 4e had massive, unreasonable brand expectations. If that's the only internal info we're operating under, how is saying "that's the best explanation available to us" more disingenuous than "the game obviously failed"?

It's not obvious that Hasbro's requirements are the sole reason, but it is the only thing we have any sort of actual knowledge about.

 

[Tony Vargas]

But you don't have proof that the brand requirement caused 4e to be shut down...

Not conclusive proof, but we do have support for it. There /was/ a brand requirement, as revealed by an insider, and the rationale for such a high revenue goals was that it would be possible to capture a subscription income stream from players via DDI. It's also a fact that DDI development suffered a major set back and was never completed. Those two factors point to a clear reason for D&D to have 'failed.'

The alternative hypothesis is that 4e was such wrongbadfunnotD&D, that huge numbers of people abandoned it, and, but for their rejection, it would have been successful. In support for this hypothesis is that D&D failed and Pathfinder succeeded. That is, however, circular reasoning. It failed because it was bad, it was bad because it failed.

The rancor of the edition war and success of Pathfinder, though, could plausibly have influenced WotC's decision to re-boot the franchise with a conservative old-school-feel 5e, instead of continuing to build on the advances of the d20 era. Old saw about any publicity being good publicity aside, they probably didn't want their game to be primarily known for how much a vocal crowd on the internet hated it... More cynically, yes, just as WotC (or Hasbro) may have had visions of putting the OGL genie back in the bottle with an innovative (for D&D) system, toxic GSL, and DDI, it's possible that this time around they think they can win back some of the old-school loyalty that they previously drove to Paizo, and thus put the closely-related-to-the-OGL-genie Pathfinder Genie back in the bottle.

Or it may really be they're serious with all the kumbaya, 'D&D for everyone who ever loved D&D' stuff.

I'm rather ticked off that healing surges remain in the game (hit dice). In addition, I think the long rest rules are beyond stupid. They couldn't even be bothered to include an alternate rule for them in the PHB, and who knows what kind of option ghetto I'll end up in with the DMG.

OK, those are some things you don't like. That doesn't tell me what your style is, nor what past edition(s) /did/ work for it (not that you're under any obligation to tell me, but like I said, I am curious). Could you maybe give us a hint of your style in the sense of what it is, not what you don't like? And, maybe explain what things you /need/ for that style (not what things you dislike) - so, again, in a positive sense? Because it just might be that there are ways to approach 5e that could work for you.

Overall, the PHB sets a bad precedent and gamist styled expectations for new players, all of which I utterly hate.

So your concern is that new players aren't being taught to play your way?

There are some good things about the game that I do like.

Such as?

I'm just very disappointed with the lack of optional rules in the PHB. The optional rules that are in the book are few in number and mostly irrelevant to enable any particular playstyle. IMO, these optional rules (which were in the playtests) were removed on purpose.

From what we've heard, it would seem options are mostly going to be in the DMG, and will, of course (at the risk of being tautological), be the option of the DM. While very early intimations in L&L did hint at players having more choice about the nature of the game as they played it, it quickly became obvious that all that agency was going to rest with the DM. Even so, that's mainly a concern for those of us participating in organized play, where such 'options,' are, indeed, chosen for us by AG policy. If you're not doing organized play, once the DMG comes out, you should have a shot at finding a DM whose running the kind of option-set you would want.

 

[Haffrung]

You only have to look at how Essentials differed from initial 4E to see where WotC thought they'd put their foot wrong, and how quickly they realized they had to address the error:

• Essentials is easier to get into than initial 4E, with simpler classes
• Essentials classes are more familiar to fans of previous editions

So WotC clearly saw a shortfall of adoption by both casual new players, and players of previous editions. Simpler and more familiar. That became the driving strategy of 5E.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You only have to look at how Essentials differed from initial 4E to see where WotC thought they'd put their foot wrong, and how quickly they realized they had to address the error:

• Essentials is easier to get into than initial 4E, with simpler classes
• Essentials classes are more familiar to fans of previous editions

So WotC clearly saw a shortfall of adoption by both casual new players, and players of previous editions. Simpler and more familiar. That became the driving strategy of 5E.

That is interesting. Essentials /did/ roll back things about 4e that were being heavily criticized in the course of the edition war. It put forth a simple, daily-less fighter with few options. It added lots of fluff text. It generally did what it was asked to to accomplish the two things you mentioned. It was launched as such with 'Red Box' art and everything. Appeal to old players. Be easy for new ones.

And it that initiative that Pathfinder finally beat.

The conclusion was that they didn't roll back far enough, so, for 5e, they rolled all the way back to the 20th century, something between early 2e and 3.0, sorta.

While it's virtually guaranteed to succeed, with all the 'core brand' silliness history and WotC one big, happy, CCG-cash-flow-blessed division again, I personally find it a little tragic that the game has not only gone back to being stodgy, but gone /so far back/ in the process. Don't get me wrong, it's nostalgic fun. Even just doing character creation for session 0 on Wed was a blast from the past. It's just that on another, less personal level, I can't help but worry that re-winding /so much/ is setting the hobby back, perhaps even dooming it to a long, slow decline....