D&D 5E Reasons Why My Interest in 5e is Waning

[BryonD]

The original Pathfinder splash poster said in big red letters: 3.5 Thrives

 

[Nebulous]

This is a bit of a tangent, but:

[snip]

So anyway, I agree with you Mishihari, the initiative rules in the PHB leave something to be desired and I'm actively looking for alternatives.

Well, I'm quite bored with the standard initiative system we've used for many years, but i don't know what a solution is either. Dungeon World has a really interesting set up but it's so different I might as well play DW.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I'm thinking of going back to 1e, roll d6 each round and then go by side.

 

[Trickster Spirit]

If they brought back DUNGEON Magazine it would solve one of these huge issues; lack of adventures of varying lengths and levels.

I don't want super-long adventure paths, those only work for extremely long-term friend groups where one person is the DM for years at a time.

They've also too strongly linked everything to game stores. There's an awful lot of people that don't play at a damn store! No matter how "lovingly supported, your local game store deserves to be"

I've never so strongly wished for the ability to award 2x the XP as I do this very moment, so seconding this will have to do. The return of Dragon and Dungeon would go a long way towards making everyone a heck of a lot happier!

 

[pemerton]

Heh That is an interesting thought.

Though, again, it comes back to how do they plan to really help the stores if they don't put out more material?

You could even argue that selling PDFs of anything out 18 months would support the market for new stuff in stores. (Granted, right now we can't say they are not doing that.)

On the issue of a light release schedule and its possible effect on stores, you might find this store owner blog interesting if you haven't already read it. (TLDR: shares your concern.)

The same store owner also posts in this Paizo thread. Having noted the lack of an OGL in the blog, in the thread (page 6) he says "I'm pretty confident in saying retailers sell an incredibly low number (if any) 3PP products."

On the question of PDFs and brick-and-mortar stores, he also says this about Paizo: "retailers generally despise Paizo for a) selling direct, b) having an online discount store, and c) feeling organized play is designed to feed back to their direct sales. I buck the trend, but it's because we have a strong Pathfinder community."

 

[Shasarak]

I'm dead center in between the both of you here, and I don't think think the gulf is actually that wide - I'm sure chriton227 understands full well what you mean when you say Pathfinder (or 13th Age, or Labyrinth Lord, or whatever) is very much "D&D", as much as AD&D or 3E or 4E or 5E is. Just as I'm sure you're aware what he's talking about when he points out that from a business and trademark / IP perspective, Paizo's Pathfinder and Wizard's Dungeons and Dragons ARE different properties.

Oh, yes if I was WotC I could certainly see his point that my DnD is no longer number 1. But as a Gamer I can look and see that DnD is ranking number 1 and 2.

The number one issue that I have with blindly focusing on the "legal" trademark as the only definition of DnD is that if WotC slaps a DnD label on Monopoly then that becomes DnD and if it gets slapped on a line of My Little Ponies then they become DnD even though for all practical purposes they are not DnD.

Not to mention the belief that even though DnD has been owned by three different companies and that no edition has been developed by the same lead designers and that none of them are compatible with each other yet they are all DnD while another game that is completely backwards compatible with DnD is somehow not DnD even though it uses all the same DnD rules except for mindflayers *cough*Cthulhu ripoff* just makes me scratch my head.

 

[pemerton]

Here's the point that Wizards really doesn't seem to understand. D&D is a niche hobby, therefore, only certain amount of people are going to play it.

<snip>

They think by going this route they are going to bring in this untapped hoard of gamers out there that are just waiting to get into D&D.

No. They are not trying to recruit huge numbers of new RPGers. They are hoping to have people buy D&D boardgames, D&D video games, D&D apps, tickets to D&D movies, etc.

Much like Marvel is making more money from the Avengers than it used to, without having to sell more comics than it used to.

 

[isidorus]

5) Serious Lack of Digital Tools. This is serious issue for me even though 5E is pretty simple. I really don't play except online and really hate everything on paper, excel. I love use something like Hero Lab for keeping track of everything.

4) No PDFs (except for the basic game). Again I agree and a reason I like Pathfinder and have dead tree and PDF's. I by both version since I like to carry books on my tablet to read wherever I am at. I can't beleive in this day and age it would be so hard to produce something acceptable for everyone involved.

3) Nothing Much to Look Forward To/Lack of Product Diversity. OkayI have all 5 books but really like campaign worlds, monster and not that many adventures. So the release schedule is pretty boring for me. In fact the fiction is pretty slow on releases except for the sundering.

2) The Waiting. Agree. One reason I like Pathfinder is there is always something coming out.

1) No OGL (or some kind of compatible license). I actually liked the OGl since I got different worlds and other products to look. No third party is a real deal killer for me.

I still like 5E quite a bit but find myself reading playing and thinking Pathfinder these days.

 

[Ranes]

...if WotC slaps a DnD label on... a line of My Little Ponies then they become DnD even though for all practical purposes they are not DnD.

Heresy! If WotC incorporates My Little Pony into D&D, woe betide anyone who doesn't let me use Magic Cutie Marks when I assault Twilight Sparkle's Castle in her Rainbow Magic Kingdom.

 

[chriton227]

Oh, yes if I was WotC I could certainly see his point that my DnD is no longer number 1. But as a Gamer I can look and see that DnD is ranking number 1 and 2.

The number one issue that I have with blindly focusing on the "legal" trademark as the only definition of DnD is that if WotC slaps a DnD label on Monopoly then that becomes DnD and if it gets slapped on a line of My Little Ponies then they become DnD even though for all practical purposes they are not DnD.

Not to mention the belief that even though DnD has been owned by three different companies and that no edition has been developed by the same lead designers and that none of them are compatible with each other yet they are all DnD while another game that is completely backwards compatible with DnD is somehow not DnD even though it uses all the same DnD rules except for mindflayers *cough*Cthulhu ripoff* just makes me scratch my head.

I agree with you completely from a player and usability issue, but I was trying to respond to the OP regarding the desire for an OGL type license. Regardless of what people think is or is not D&D, the OGL license is a business construct. We saw when 4e came out that the GSL was far more restrictive than the OGL, which to me points out that someone in power at WotC or Hasbro thought that the OGL was too permissive. Then after the 4e GSL, Pathfinder was released and surpassed 4e in sales, which I'm sure was not looked on favorably by the bean counters; after all Pathfinder was legally using rules that WotC spent a lot of time and money developing and WotC wasn't getting a cut of it, making the OGL look like a bad financial move for WotC. I think this chain of events makes it unlikely that we will see anything resembling the OGL come out for 5e. I still hold out hope that there will be some form 3PP license, and hopefully it will find a middleground between the very permissive OGL and the very restrictive GSL, but there is a distinct possibility that there will either end up being no license, or that the license or the process to become a licensee will be so restrictive that no 3PPs will be willing to use it.

And the OGL is a completely separate licensing discussion from the one about branded products. The OGL is all about 3PPs making RPG books that are compatible with 5e, and has nothing to do with WotC/Hasbro making (or working with other companies to make) D&D branded non-RPG book products. The state of an OGL style license wouldn't have any impact on whether WotC/Hasbro releases the Fantasy Heroes of MLP line featuring Drippy Drizzt and Moonshine Selune, but it would determine whether someone could release a supplement for 5e to allow players to play talking ponies with magic abilities.