D&D 5E Am I no longer WoTC's target audience?

[Lanefan]

For sure. I mean really, who plays an assassin in an adventuring party? That's just not going to go well...

My experience is that having an Assassin in the party usually works out better than having a Paladin in the party, largely because someone playing an Assassin doesn't force everyone else at the table into playing a very restricted subset of alignments.

 

[Lanefan]

Dude, so do we all. Around here, you can't wave a stick around without hitting someone with a library as large, who has been playing since the 1970s. There is no authority to be gained by such a statement.

Well, to a point there is: it means this person has at least passing experience with a broad variety of systems and is thus in a good place to make comparisons.

And I somewhat agree with that poster when s/he says that D&D hasn't necessarily become mechanically better in all ways since 0e or 1e days. Some things have improved, sure, but others have regressed - and much of this IMO is due to the designers trying too hard to unify too many mechanics rather than simply using whatever mechanic is best for the specific task at hand.

In 3e it was the overuse of d20 in situations where the higher granularity of d% worked much better.
In 4e it was the shoehorning of everything into AEDU where some classes and abilities were better served by different systems
In 5e it's the overuse of advantage/disadvantage where a flat + or - bonus/penalty (and the ability to vary such; ad/disad can't be varied) often makes more sense.

 

[Morrus]

I wasn’t stating an authority. Just what I like and what I do jerk. Notice how I said I think all the games are good in there own way with good things in them. What a jerk. Insert middle finger.

Don't call people names. And don't post again in this thread.

 

[GreyLord]

I understand that.

This isn't "newest is best because it is new". It is the simple fact that Gygax, et al, were quite visionary, but... they were newbs. We have learned a whole lot about RPGs since their work, and their original game contains none of the learning of the following years. That's not a failing on their part, any more than it is was Henry Ford's fault that he couldn't produce a 21st century automobile, or Newton's that he didn't figure out Relativity.

Nor does this mean their games aren't fun - I got years of enjoyment out of them. But... we do better now.

I disagree. You are comparing art to technology. Sure, there may be improvements in some ways but that does not make art lesser than it was.

Because we now have Olafur Eliasson or Mark Kostabi does that suddenly make the works of Michaelangelo or Rembrandt suddenly devoid of being appreciated or valuable pieces of art? Does it mean that suddenly because art has advanced in it's form that people must prefer Eliasson or Kostabi to the other two. Is Da Vinci's Mona Lisa now dated to be worthless in usage compared to the other because it's outdated by several centuries.

This is something you see in game and game design regularly at times where someone claims old games are outdated and new games and hotness are better.

Looking at games themselves, as per I read the ideas in how they were presented regarding model T's and current cars, Chess and Go are fallen games that are no better than century old pieces of technology, no longer able to keep up or be as good as those games made today. Contrasted to that, many would disagree and would say Chess and Go are perhaps the most popular games on the planet today outstripping the "new" and "improved" versions of most games with the updated "game designs" of today.

However, I don't think the 5e designers felt the same way you did. They WANTED to capture the ideas and design ideas of the old and present them in such a way to modern audiences.

It's more of an art and preference than technology in my opinion which is why at times, the same ideas remain popular today as they did previously.

This is one of the things that 5e tried to build upon, to find and retain that which made D&D popular in the past while adding on things to attract modern audiences.

 

[Umbran]

I disagree. You are comparing art to technology.

Nope.

When I started camping seriously, my father gifted me with a hatchet made by Estwing - the handle is made of stacked leather disks, lacquered together. It is beautiful, and functional - art and tool.

A game system contains art, sure. But the game system itself is also a tool - the metaphorical paint brushes we use to play and create our own stories, which are art. Thus, considering he system itself as a technology is apt.

 

[GreyLord]

Nope.

When I started camping seriously, my father gifted me with a hatchet made by Estwing - the handle is made of stacked leather disks, lacquered together. It is beautiful, and functional - art and tool.

A game system contains art, sure. But the game system itself is also a tool - the metaphorical paint brushes we use to play and create our own stories, which are art. Thus, considering he system itself as a technology is apt.

I think you may not understand the connection between ART and technology. Art HAS advanced and changed. You find some of the same arguments in relation to modern artists as you do in regards to game rules.

If you are of the sort that consider the art prior to the 20th century as old and outdated, it is very similar to those who have the same type of opinion to those who feel the same about games today vs. games of yesteryear (aka...chess and go for example).

Many may not be aware but art advances in technique and design (especially painting and architecture) and unlike game design, has advanced probably quicker (in reality, almost in a quadratic measure rather than a more linear measure) than game design over the past 50 years.

Technology probably is more intrinsic in art today in how it's developing than in game design as well.

THUS, I'd say that it's not just a comparison, but a reality that games are really just another form of art in many ways, and as art is more opinion and perception in what one likes or is good, the same holds for RPG's and games of that sort (as well as other types of games of which I participate in which is the boardgame scene).

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The background or lore would be like the art (using the technology) and the rules and game mechanics would be the technology.

* Kenders are fun for a little time, but you can't tell always the same joke. And bein funny in a TTRPG isn't easy, and when you fail it becomes annoying. Now I wonder about a player with a kender PC in Critical Rol could cause these become popular again.

* If you want to know what franchises are more popular, you should investigate what homebred adaptations are being created. Sometimes I start to think seriously WotC is going to create a D&D version of my little pony, maybe with centauresses, or a new race of living constructs linked to animal/monster totem spirits and their bodies can change into beast morphs..(and by the way, there is a project of an action-live movie base in the Beast Wars cartoon/toys franchise).

* If the assasin comes back as base class and not only as subclass, you can bet somebody will want to play them like the characters from that videogame saga. I imagine it as a hybrid stealth/spellcaster or stealth/martial adept.

* Today we don't need aliens to add new races to sci-fi settings, with the excuse of mutations or transgenic engineering.

* Tielfling PCs is like toupe hairstylee in the rockabilly age, punk crests in the 80's or piercings in the last decade. It is a fashion wave to look "bad guy" or "I am rejected because I am different and nobody understands me". Later when it was too seen then other new dress will be the next fashion tendency.

 

[Arilyn]

It would be really odd to assume that rpg designers have made no progress over the decades, other than creating new games. There have been refinements and experiments, some of which have been tossed, some kept.

The original D&D rules are rough, and even AD&D has rules mostly ignored, not because of preference, but because they are cludgy or unworkable.

Game designers have a much fuller tool box, and generally a better feel for what will work smoothly. Game design requires a knowledge of math and statistics. Grasping the best formulas for that tricky balance between fun and a workable ruleset requires practice and knowledge of what came before.

Theses ideas can shift around depending on what's in vogue, and of course it's not a smooth straight line upwards with every newly published game being better than earlier ones. Generally, however, games have improved. Designers are learning and building from previous knowledge, widening the field, and polishing techniques. This is what we do, whether it's art, technology, or RPGs.

 

[Umbran]

I think you may not understand the connection between ART and technology.

THE connection, because there's only one, and it is well-understood and agreed upon? Sure...

I quite accept that art has changed. I'm not going to get into an argument over whether art has "advanced" - for that I will instead quote Shakespeare - there is no accounting for taste.

For what I'm talking about, whether art has advanced or not is not material. I can stick to discussing system-as-technology, and I'm fine, thanks.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You mean the people that would play theives and assassins in 1e?

What's so wrong with wanting to play a fantasy version of Alexander Mundy or James Bond?